"Thank you for helping our non-verbal autistic 6…"

I am not normally one who shares personal information regarding my children however, I am today. I am sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, grateful to the incredible staff at Frimley Park this week. From the staff at an and e, to the Urology Surgical Team, to the ultrasound team, To the paediatricians and incredible nursing staff on f1 I salute you and the incredible work that you do. I came in with a non-verbal autistic six year old who presented with pain and no other symptoms. The problem was his pain didn’t seem that extreme at face value. Every single member of staff we encountered listened as I advocated for my child. They understood that my son doesn’t show pain therefore the pain he was exhibiting was on par with an 8-9 on a normal child scale. When we were admitted on to f1, there was understanding on his needs and they wanted to keep him as comfortable as possible, as I was alone for most of it, husband was with my daughter, they watched over my son when I needed a coffee, a walk and even watched him so I could go to the toilet. When I eventually fell apart they allowed my husband to come to the ward and stay way past visiting hours to support me. They listened when I told them he wouldn’t tolerate a urine bag and came up with a solution. They listened when I told them the best way to get blood out of my son was going to require five people. They listened when I said that if they were in any doubt about the root cause for his pain please do the necessary and any extra required to be 100% sure he is ok. We as parents spend a lot of our days fighting to be heard. Not this time. We were presented with a child who shows no pain in excruciating pain around his groin area who had stopped drinking and eating and they listened to our every word and followed our lead at all times. Most importantly, they listened to us tell his story without prejudice, judgement or assumptions. We were presented with causes from appendicitis and sepsis (life threatening situations if untreated, to a viral bug which would go away on its own). Every single member of staff helped, supported, listened to us and treated our son with every ounce of respect they could give him. Thankfully we took our boy home after ruling out everything scary leaving us with a viral bug that caused lymph node swelling in his groin area causing the significant pain. I am thankful to every single member of the team who spent time with my son, who support us as a family, who helped keep a very stressful situation as calm as possible. We can never repay or express how much it meant to us. From a family who spends their entire time fighting to be heard thank you x x x