{"id":13000,"date":"2022-09-09T08:37:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T07:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/?p=13000"},"modified":"2024-12-19T13:53:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T13:53:11","slug":"discovering-our-strength-with-a-helping-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/blog\/discovering-our-strength-with-a-helping-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovering our strength, with a helping hand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019re taking part in Run For<\/a>, you might already have met P\u00e1uric. He\u2019s one of this year\u2019s champions. P\u00e1uric, who\u2019s five years old, has cerebral palsy and vision impairments, but, wow, does he love exercise! Get ready to be kept on your toes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we\u2019ve been chatting with mum, Janine, to get to know P\u00e1uric and his Sense story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh yes, P\u00e1uric really likes being active. He does swimming, personal training with a karate coach and, my goodness, he loves Joe Wicks. P\u00e1uric wakes up asking, \u201cAre we doing our exercises today?\u201d so we put on a Joe Wicks video most mornings.

P\u00e1uric has triplegic cerebral palsy \u2013 his two legs and his right hand are affected. I\u2019ve thought about how wonderful it would be if he grew up to do personal training for people with different abilities. There\u2019s not that much accessible coaching out there, so that would  be really something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Janine and P\u00e1uric in their beautiful garden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was a scary start to life<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

P\u00e1uric was born very early. I didn\u2019t have any hint of his arrival at all, he just decided one day, \u201cI think you\u2019re having too much fun without me.\u201d So that was it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had to be resuscitated when he was born. He was doing well, but then he took a double brain haemorrhage that was really quite severe. He was very poorly \u2013 he had a wee heart murmur and his lungs were filling with fluid\u2026 We told the doctors we wanted to save him, no matter what. But it was very scary. My uncle\u2019s a priest and he came in that night to christen him.

It was traumatic for at least the first ten weeks. There was a lot of coming and going, different procedures, different scans and a whole lot of big words that we didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bleeds on P\u00e1uric\u2019s brain and the procedures around them affected his eyes. His left eye didn\u2019t recover from the muscle damage; we\u2019re still establishing what sight he has, it seems like he misses things in his lower and side field of vision.
On top of that, his vision has been left quire blurry from being born early. Retinopathy of prematurity, I think, is the term for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our sensory revolution<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We had support from various organisations while P\u00e1uric was growing up. Then, I was talking to a friend one day, trying to get advice on how to strengthen his helper hand and his vision. She helped us get a referral to Sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was brilliant. A lady from Sense started coming to the house with a car boot that was always filled with toys that squeaked, beeped, smelt and rattled \u2013 it was a sensory explosion! Both P\u00e1uric and his older brother, R\u00f3n\u00e1n, loved her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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R\u00f3n\u00e1n hugs his younger brother, P\u00e1uric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The toys that Sense introduced made P\u00e1uric want to use his limbs, to understand and really engage his full body and senses. It sort of enlightened us and taught us how to keep him progressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was very good at bringing the boys together while concentrating on P\u00e1uric\u2019s needs. Sense has always been good at including R\u00f3n\u00e1n. I never wanted him to feel excluded or undervalued by the attention that P\u00e1uric received. At the end of the day, we\u2019re in it together as a family. I think Sense have always understood and supported that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support to take on new challenges<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now, you look at him and it\u2019s amazing. P\u00e1uric turned five in July, he\u2019ll be off to a mainstream primary school soon. I\u2019m delighted with his development; he\u2019s adapted so well. It\u2019s hard to say whether he\u2019d be ready for this big step without the support we\u2019ve had from organisations like Sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sense is still part of our lives, we do their days out and have visits from our support worker, Joyce. They\u2019ve given us opportunities we thought we\u2019d never have, things we might have shied away from because they\u2019re a wee bit more difficult to do \u2013 or impossible to do without a helping hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Run for P\u00e1uric<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

P\u00e1uric has faced up to every challenge, so it\u2019s amazing to have people like you take on the Run For challenge<\/a> for him!<\/strong> I know you\u2019ll do a brilliant job.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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