Story Thirty Six - 8th July

This was the worst day of the whole year.

I arrived home on 8th July to find a hand delivered letter on the mat. It was three weeks after the second DoL was authorised, two weeks after Hillingdon cancelled our holiday and two weeks since the final part of the fake transition home plan had started. Steven had been home for two overnight stays and was getting dead excited about the permanent return home, which we were both expecting to be in two weeks time.

This is the contents of the letter:

"The meeting made decisions that have immediate consequences and we need to ensure that you are aware of them. We decided that we can not support the long-term plan of Steven returning home to live with you on a permanent basis. We acknowledge that we have commenced this process but feel that we should let you know now that we are extremely uncomfortable with this plan and as the local authority responsible for commissioning support we can not knowingly continue to support a plan that we feel is too high a risk. Steven still presents high levels of risk to himself and others on a daily basis and our views are that this is likely to continue. As a consequence we are going to make changes in the current plan regarding Steven being in transition to your home. We want to be clear that we do not want to hinder contact between Steven and yourself ... We understand that this will cause you huge concern as you are dedicated to your son and his well-being and with this in mind we would like to hold a case conference and invite you to attend with someone to support you."

I threw up all over the living room floor. I tried to speak to my friend Val on the phone but couldn't talk for sobbing. I wanted a fight.

That night, I thought I was having a heart attack. I had never known pain like it. I called an ambulance and they ran full tests but it turned out to be a full scale panic attack. Nothing wrong with my heart except it was broken by this latest course of action by Hillingdon. Six months of lies to Steven and I but now the cat was out of the bag.

I blurted the whole story out to a lovely nurse, who cuddled me and said: "You've got to carry on. You've got no other choice".

That day was the turning point of the whole year. They had taken away our last bit of hope and when you have nothing left to lose, you can become quite dangerous. All that suppressed power comes back and twenty four hours after being wired up to a heart monitor, the Get Steven Home campaign was launched.