The Lodger and Us

The first year after The Lodgers diagnosis every week there seemed to be something new that we would have to get our heads around as parents of somebody with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS).  All we could see was FOOD!! At birthdays there's cake. At Halloween there's trick or treating. At Christmas there's too much. At weddings there's food. At Easter there's chocolate. At family and friends get togethers there's food. Walking down the street, there's food! And then there's the things we enjoyed doing, baking and cooking, eating out in restaurants, going for a coffee down in the village, a takeaway when we didn't feel like cooking, picnics up the mountains, a trip to the cinema with popcorn, an ice-cream on a sunny day, a hot chocolate on a wintery day... the list goes on! In that first year, we enjoyed the last time we'd have our favourite cake on our birthday, a selection box at Christmas, an Easter egg, an ice-cream, a hot chocolate...

Since deciding (or having it decided for me) to change my area of life study to everything relating to Prader-Willi Syndrome a few years ago I kind of wonder what I used to fill my brain with. Thanks to The Lodger, one of our new very mild super powers (and there are a few) as credited to the D.O.D. (David O'Doherty) is our ability to circumnavigate hospitals.  We don't need to follow signs or ask at the desk - you can almost sense where you need to go. Obviously this super power is totally magic and nothing to do with the over familiarisation of hospital and health facilities that the world of The Lodger has brought us to. Pre-investing in The Lodger, it's not that I ever thought about exposing my super power, it's just that I never thought about it. Or that it was even there. Possibly ignorant to a whole world within our world that we just managed to avoid. But now we're in and it'll take more than a blindfold to keep me out of an endocr...