I received the report on 25 February. I asked my carer to go through it with m because I knew that I would struggle, mainly because it was 18 pages long, and my eyes would object to reading that much all at once, and I wanted to understand it fully. I won’t bore you with every detail, but I want to clarify a few things, and some are very interesting and helpful for others to know. I think the first thing is quite stupid… The report suggested that I deliberately banged my hand

On 20 February, I received an email from Questa stating that they had reached an outcome and wanted to call me to discuss the assessment results. When I received that email, lots of emotions ran through my head; initially I was just really excited to finally get an answer, but then I felt incredibly anxious and a bit sick because I had been dealing with this situation of uncertainty for so long and I thought that if they said that I'm not Autistic, I would look like a fool an

I didn't see this myself, but my mum said that I react differently to different people. Of course, everyone acts differently depending on whether they're with a friend, family member, someone you know in passing or a mixture of these relationships. I had to really think about how I react to different people before I wrote this because I wasn't sure, but I tend to be less chatty with people I don't know very well because I don't know what to say, and I don't want to say anythi

I know this is a fine line between an autistic trait and a characteristic of the startle reflex caused by my CP, but I don’t like sudden loud noises. If you put my CP aside for a few minutes, and I know this may sound ridiculous, but my autistic side says loud noises hurt my ears. If noises are really loud, I can cry because they’re too loud and my sensitive ears can’t handle them. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like thunder or fireworks. The build-up to loud bangs of

On 11 February, I had the phone call assessment. I haven't really got much to say about this, but I will tell you what was spoken about… On the phone, my mum and I spoke about my childhood. Although I knew how many friends I had at primary school, it sounded quite sad because I didn't have many. We also spoke about bullies. I was bullied at primary school and senior school, and we spoke about why it might have happened, and then a thought-provoking comment came up: what if I

In the assessment, I was presented with a box full of various toys, and I was invited to “play” with the toys. I thought this was quite weird because I don’t really play with toys anymore, but I went along with it. There was one particular thing with lots of pins in a rectangle, where you could push the pins through to make a pattern or picture. I said that I could possibly do this with my feet. I poked a few pins with my toes. We turned it over, and I said that it sounded li

It wasn’t long after we submitted the last form before I got the appointments for the assessments. There were two assessments. Before the two assessments, I asked two of my friends about what I should expect because I was anxious about them. The first one was face-to-face in Havant, and the second one was over the phone. The day before the face-to-face assessment came, and I was absolutely bricking it. I was aware that the assessment may have changed days, because, after all,

I am generally healthy and don’t need to see my GP often, so I didn’t involve my GP to get on the waiting list for an assessment because I have regular appointments with my consultant. Once I had that initial conversation with my mum, it was relatively straightforward to get on the waiting list. I had been wanting to get on the waiting list for ages before I actually did, but I was worried about what my mum would say because I remember having a bad experience when I brought i

Knowing who you are plays a massive part in accepting yourself, and ever since I started college, I’ve struggled to know who I am. I feel that not many people really know me, and not many people actually want to make the effort to get to know who I am on the inside, and that hurts me deeply. I may not know how to explain them, but I do have feelings. I do want to have conversations and relationships with some people, but I just don’t know where to start. For as long as I can

April is Autism Awareness Month, so it's the perfect time to talk about the ASD assessment process... For the past year or so, I have been on the NHS waiting list to have assessments to see if I am on the Autistic Spectrum. I have always known that I was different from most of my peers at school, but I just assumed that it was all because of my physical disability. As I grew up, I began to realise that something else was going on. At school, I was a happy child most of the ti

Along with the Lycra glove, I have also tried other Lycra garments and suits. I was the first child to have a Lycra suit funded by the NHS in our area. Lycra suits are skin-tight and they’re designed to compress the muscles a little to dampen down involuntary movements or support controlled movement. I don’t know what it’s like now, but when I was about five years old, Lycra suits weren’t funded in our area because it was like a postcode lottery; it depended on where you live

Another thing that I’m really happy to be able to do is stroke my dog. My mum, dad and I have a Labradoodle called Rani. She is four years old but she still thinks she’s a puppy; she is very clumsy and loves to run around doing what we call a doodle dash. When she gets excited, she runs the length of the room and back again. Rani lives with my mum and dad, and when I visit, she goes mental! I get out of my wheelchair before Rani is let into the living room because otherwise,

As I’ve said, I fix my arms when I am doing things with other parts of my body. I sit in the “W” position sometimes at home. This is where your knees are bent with your feet on either side of your bum. Most physiotherapists I’ve seen have tried to discourage me from sitting in the W position because it’s bad for my hips, but most haven’t seemed to realise that I cannot keep myself sitting upright without something behind me unless I sit in this position. When I eat or brush m

When the wound was healing up, I had lots of little scabby bits along the scar. Very technical wording, I know! Anyway, the scar was raised and I’m not sure if it was these scabs and I don’t know why, but at one point my scar was really painful. I kept catching the scar when my arm moved across something, and that felt like I was pulling a single strand of hair! As with every injury or procedure, you have to learn to adapt afterwards, and I know that this operation wasn’t rea

Two weeks after the operation, on 14 November, I went back to the hospital for a check-up. The consultant was very happy with how my wound was healing and said that I didn’t need anything back on it and he said to leave it open to the air. I went home, and carried on as normally as I could. I still had my arm in the sling to keep it supported and to prevent me from whacking my arm on things at home. After my cast was taken off, my arm and hand were very swollen. My wrist and