Every mother prays that their baby comes out fine when they give birth.
They hope that their baby will be perfectly healthy without any problems whatsoever. It’s one thing to take care of a baby; it is another to cater to special needs babies.
Unfortunately, it is not the case for some mothers.
No, we’re not saying it is a totally bad thing because we know that these kids are still a ray of light for parents. But we recognize the challenges that these mothers face.
Tandy Palmes of Wildboardclough, England, found herself in that situation.
In an interview with This Morning, she said she felt there was something different with her pregnancy. When she was pregnant with her older son, Otis, she could feel him kicking in her womb a lot of times. She didn’t feel that with Angus.
She kept asking the doctors about it, but they said she’ll be fine.
The moment Angus was born, that was when they discovered that there was indeed something wrong with him. They ran many tests and saw that he did not respond accordingly. He was taken in for special care and later to a hospital in Manchester when he started having seizures.
They did genetic tests and found out that he had a rare condition; there wasn’t a name for it.
Geneticists discovered that he has a genetic disorder called “chromosome translocation of 15/22 with partial trisomy of 22q12.3.” There is no shorter way of saying it or a generic scientific name because they have not witnessed this before.
Angus’s disorder is characterized by multiple dysfunctions.
He can’t walk and talk. He was also born with a club foot and chronic gastric reflux – both of which he underwent an operation to be corrected. He also had open-heart surgery since he had several holes in his heart.
But one thing that people noticed about Angus was that he looked like a toddler even at 13.
Yes, Angus was 13 at the time of the interview in This Morning, and he is around 18 years old now. The photo above was taken in 2020 (he was probably about 16), but look at how he looked like he was still a toddler.
Tandy recognizes that her child has special needs.
She accepted that he wouldn’t be living an independent life, but she’s taking that one day at a time. The most important thing for her is his health and welfare, and that she balances her time between him and her other son, Otis.
She is glad that Angus still is a happy child, despite his self-harm tendencies.
Because Angus cannot communicate his feelings well, he tends to hit or rub himself to the point of bruising to express how he is in pain.
Other than that, he usually has a smile on his face that lights everybody up.
He sticks out his thumb and finger and moves them together to signal that he is happy and feeling okay. Tandy said that he does many hand signals that might not mean anything to others, but those who took care of him and knew him well know exactly every hand signal he makes.
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