IT'S BEEN A STRESSFUL WEEK!

Am writing this in blog format as it's a bit of a longer one as not been online.

After Monday's exam and opticians event Tuesday came along and was, luckily, fairly uneventful.  However, by Tuesday night, Callum was really tired and beginning to stress about the work placement as he's finding it quite boring.  Not entirely their fault as he wasn't supposed to be working there.

He made sure he had an early night, but was still stressy and tired by Wednesday morning saying that he'd had an erratic night's sleep.  But he went in.  Back home at lunchtime, he announced that he was having an assessment that afternoon at 1pm!  Oh great!  He took a bit longer for lunch, but went back within plenty of time even though he wasn't a happy bunny.

Turns out assessment went ok, but it has highlighted a few criteria that he needs to achieve, a couple on the written side and a fair few on the work side, but then that's going to be hard if they can't find him the stuff to do.  They did say that once he's completed the NVQ, and they are saying that he needs at least another 2 assessments done so at least 8 more weeks, that he could do a volunteer placement at another, more local to us, school as a kind of 'gofer'.  Shame he can't do that as his work placement as it appears that there would be a lot more for him to do.  The job could lead to an apprenticeship and maybe a job, so I think he has expressed an initial interest.

He was totally shattered Wednesday night though and he wasn't sure he could face going in again on the Thursday just to do filing, especially as we had the PIP assessment on Friday (today) and he was beginning to worry about that also.  So we came to an agreement that he would set his alarm for 9am (the time he was due in) and if he work up before he would go in and if not, he would, at least, be able to ring them and tell him that he wasn't going in (he wanted to do it, even though I offered to call them for him).

Thursday came and he didn't wake up until 8.50am so far too late to go in and he still wasn't feeling great anyway.  He called and let them know and went back to bed, which is unusual for him as once he's up, he's up.  He didn't wake until nearly 11am so obviously needed the sleep.  Spent the day having a chill out and reading over PIP form in prep for today.

Today we made it to PIP assessment a little early.  Callum a little stressed as we had to get a bus and, of course, we didn't know where we were going exactly, although roughly, and we didn't know the person we were going to see.  The assessment itself wasn't as bad as I imagined and the lady that took it did seem to have a reasonable understanding of Autism, which was a start.  She asks the questions and took time to explain when it was obvious that Callum didn't quite understand what she meant.  Callum answered as best he could, although no eye contact and fingers fiddling all the time and I filled in details where necessary.  Hopefully we got across the issues he faces.

Just missed a bus, so walked back to High St (approx 20mins) and checked into opticians to order his new glasses as we discovered he didn't have a spare pair at home.  Thought we, especially he, deserved a Subway so we had lunch and watched the world go by.  Gave him, and me, time to relax a little before coming home.

Both glad this week is over to be honest, but can definitely see the relief in Callum.  He now has a free weekend until Tuesday apart from an hour's free running tomorrow.