{"id":285,"date":"2021-05-20T09:53:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T08:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/?p=285"},"modified":"2023-04-20T09:54:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T08:54:27","slug":"our-daughter-has-a-rare-chromosome-disorder-finding-sense-was-the-best-thing-we-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/blog\/our-daughter-has-a-rare-chromosome-disorder-finding-sense-was-the-best-thing-we-did\/","title":{"rendered":"Our daughter has a rare chromosome disorder \u2013 finding Sense was the best thing we did"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"is-style-intro\">Six-year-old Tilly is supported by Sense, and has a rare chromosome disorder causing poor vision, hearing loss and learning difficulties. Her mum, Louise, explains how Sense have supported Tilly and her family during lockdown.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Tilly was three months old,&nbsp;a paediatrician noticed she hadn\u2019t reached some of her milestones. After running some&nbsp;tests,&nbsp;the hospital told us&nbsp;that she&nbsp;has&nbsp;a rare chromosome disorder, as well as having very poor vision.&nbsp;By the time&nbsp;Tilly was three years&nbsp;old,&nbsp;she was also diagnosed with some hearing loss.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was around this time that&nbsp;we started going to sessions at&nbsp;the Sense Woodside Family Centre.&nbsp;We were still taking Tilly to&nbsp;a&nbsp;baby sensory&nbsp;group and&nbsp;was looking for other&nbsp;groups&nbsp;for older children,&nbsp;where&nbsp;she could get the&nbsp;sensory&nbsp;stimulation&nbsp;she loved.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was quite nervous about reaching out and meeting other people, but honestly, it\u2019s the best thing we did. I wish I\u2019d gone before. Once I plucked up the courage to go&nbsp;to&nbsp;Sense&nbsp;Woodside&nbsp;we just haven\u2019t looked back.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sense&nbsp;Woodside supported Tilly to&nbsp;develop&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When we first started going to Sense Woodside as a family, Tilly wasn\u2019t able to participate in the sessions, and she loved lying on the floor and looking at the bright lights. But going to the sessions had such a positive impact on us as a family because we suddenly found ourselves with people who knew what we were going through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s been amazing to work with the Sense team to develop Tilly\u2019s communication. Before,&nbsp;she couldn\u2019t communicate with us&nbsp;but Caitlin, a Sense Children and Family Support Worker, is supporting Tilly to&nbsp;learn&nbsp;to sign.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nowadays Tilly is very playful, she\u2019s got such a bubbly, friendly personality. She likes throwing balls and watching them roll down things, anything with movement really. And she loves music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"882\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tilly-watching-sense-sessions-768x882-1.jpg\" alt=\"A little girl in a wheelchair sitting at a kitchen table watching a laptop. She has a smile on her face.\" class=\"wp-image-286\"\/ style=\"object-position: 63.60% 38.76%;\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tilly-watching-sense-sessions-768x882-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tilly-watching-sense-sessions-768x882-1-450x517.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tilly-watching-sense-sessions-768x882-1-610x700.jpg 610w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tilly-watching-sense-sessions-768x882-1-522x600.jpg 522w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tilly-watching-sense-sessions-768x882-1-348x400.jpg 348w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tilly-watching-sense-sessions-768x882-1-350x402.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/tilly-watching-sense-sessions-768x882-1-600x689.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">During the pandemic, we&nbsp;carried on&nbsp;taking part&nbsp;online&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When the first lockdown was announced last year,&nbsp;I was really worried. I just didn\u2019t know how it would impact on us as a family, what the impact would be on Tilly and her health, and I was worried about feeling isolated.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the pandemic we\u2019ve carried on taking part in Sense family sessions online. At first it was difficult for Tilly to engage with online sessions, but she&nbsp;soon became used to&nbsp;her new routine and now loves taking part in the songs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nursey rhymes like Wheels on the Bus and Wind the Bobbin Up are two of her favourites.&nbsp;Each session the team sing a welcome song to each child, and Tilly gets very excited and&nbsp;uses the \u2018T\u2019 sign to introduce herself.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We were also sent some craft kits at Christmas which were brilliant, as well as some sensory toys. It\u2019s great to have something for Tilly to smell or touch to get&nbsp;all&nbsp;her senses involved.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sense has helped us to keep connected to other families during the pandemic. The team have&nbsp;supported Tilly to keep connected with her friends. Just knowing that the support is there&nbsp;and&nbsp;that we can join in at any point is so helpful.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six-year-old Tilly is supported by Sense, and has a rare chromosome disorder causing poor vision, hearing loss and learning difficulties. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"display_author":[128],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","display_author-louise-tillys-mum"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"display_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/display_author?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}