The Kaedyn Newsletter

 Well… bear with me folks, I have updates😂

First of all, the first two weeks of high school have been wonderful!! Kaedyn has made some gorgeous new friends, he’s feeling calm, settled, and we’ve noticed such a significant shift in his mood that afternoons are no longer a full stew of stress.

Last year looked very different... Home and therapy became Kaedyn’s safe places to let everything out,  sometimes becoming his punching bags too. School just wasn’t lighting him up anymore; he was ready for something that felt more mature, more his pace. So the rest of us learned to step back and let him work through that defiance… He’s even been willing to negotiate his scale of niceness towards Kal… (and to be clear, Kal is the absolute nicest — Kaedyn just happens to find encouragement deeply suspicious.) He's been loving his new OT, Sam, and is quite happy to kick me out and lay all the goss on her... It's my guess that he's talking shit about all of us hahaha

Of course, there have been a few hiccups, just transitional stuff, nothing explosive. Learning new routines, new staff, new spaces, and navigating bathroom stuff with people he’s only just met, but he's handling it like a champ!

Now… let’s talk about the pool situation.😖

The school’s pool hoist is, politely put, ancient. Not exactly confidence-inspiring when safety is involved. It’s frustrating, but it also lit a brand-new fire in me (because apparently I needed one more thing to be outraged about, and poor Ben absolutely needed ANOTHER email from me).

So we decided to write the school pool off for now and instead check the local council pool, for the future out of school swimming lessons. I just wanted a simple two-minute phone call where someone reassured me:
“Yes, we have a ceiling hoist that he can safely transfer from his chair into a water wheelchair.”

Simple. Easy. Inclusive!

WELLLLL…apparently not😡

Turns out they removed their Changing Place bathroom.

Yep. Removed it! That's what she said...

A hundred steps backwards in our world, and the ceiling hoist they do have? It's broken. Apparently, it's been broken long enough that the staff member I spoke to laughed and said maybe it was time she reminded her boss to call someone to fix it.

I didn’t find it funny.

There’s nothing amusing about excluding an entire group of people from something as basic and as important as accessing a pool. Pools aren’t just recreation for the disabled; they provide therapy, freedom, independence, and happiness. When accessibility equipment breaks, it shouldn’t become background noise or shoved to the bottom of someones to-do list. You would fix the air-con. You’d replace the coffee machine. But equipment that directly impacts wheelchair users is optional?

This shit is tiring AF! I find myself making phone calls and feeling outraged in situations where it should just be done; this is someone's job, but it's not mine!

But in brighter and, honestly, incredibly exciting news…

Kaedyn’s new book releases on Tuesday!

Proof copies arrive Monday because Amazon likes to make me sweat! He’ll be attending the Kalamunda Writers Festival for his very first SOLO event. I won’t be there as an author this time, just as a very proud mum and his slightly overexcited assistant.

Watching him step into this role not just as a kid with a story, but as someone learning that his voice matters, feels really special. There’s something surreal about seeing your child move from being supported to becoming someone who might quietly support others without even realising it... he doesn't realise it, but this book is important, this book will be a looking glass for a lot of kids.

This book carries a strong focus on therapy because Kaedyn, like so many of his peers, lives a life shaped by it.

For kids like him, therapy is woven into everyday life, helping them grow, adapt, and upskill to the very best of their ability. It’s such a huge part of their world, yet it’s rarely spoken about openly, and often people don't understand why it's so significant. This story gives that experience a voice, and more importantly, it gives kids walking a similar path the chance to open a book and finally see themselves reflected back. They get to recognise their effort. See the exhaustion, and realise they aren’t the only ones doing the hard work behind the scenes every single day, they aren't alone, there are those of us who understand the struggle.

There are a lot of hard days in this journey. There is a lot of advocating, explaining, crying, pushing, and hoping the world catches up just a little bit faster.

But there are moments you get to watch your kid step forward with confidence, surrounded by people who want to hear what he has to share... and suddenly, they are gravity itself.

Adios!