Sunday, October 2, 2011

An Update...finally!

Much has happened for the past year and a half, since my last post. Not all has been rosy, but plenty of happy moments nontheless.

Rasanya baru saja aku cium dahi adik aku dan ucap 'good luck' masa dia disorong masuk ke delivery room. Diam tak diam, Kojiq pun dah 8 tahun usianya, dan Enysh adiknya dah 5 tahun. How time flies! Ayong jugak yang masih perasan dirinya muda hehehe :-)

Anyway.

Kojiq is no longer on the ABA programme. Sayang sungguh, coz masa tu yg paling banyak improvement. But we had to discontinue, mainly because it got so expensive :-( His therapist was coming 3-4 days a week, and the consultant once every fortnight.

Total expenses for Kojiq's therapy (Kindy, ABA, Speech and Occupational) came to about RM2,500-3,000 a month! So we had to do the next best thing - cut down on his ABA hours to 2-3 times a week only. But I guess the therapist wasn't too happy about it. Yelah, itu periuk nasi dia, kan? Then start la buat hal, datang lambat or tak datang langsung walaupun ada appointment, which later on she admitted that dia dapat client baru, anak tokay apa ntah, yang mintak dia datang 5 kali seminggu. So dia tarik diri from Kojiq.

Kojiq's mum cried buckets and actually pleaded with her to stay, but she was adamant to leave, saying something about commitment. We were so disappointed, and Kojiq's mum never quite get through to finding another ABA therapist. Later on bila ada terserempak masa pegi seminar, dia lari-lari. Kitorang pun buat dek je la, tapi aku tau hati adikku memang terguris, dia rasa disisih dek minah tu sebab duit. Tapi itu benda yang diluar kawalan kita, kan?

Anyhow, Kojiq's mum took a 6 months no-pay leave, semata-mata untuk toilet-train Kojiq sebelum dia mula bersekolah di sekolah biasa (Kelas Khas). Banyak saat yang frustrating, memang susah sangat nak toilet-train budak autism, nanti kita bukak topik lain on that.

AlhamduliLlah, settle semuanya sebelum Kojiq mula sekolah. Tahun ni Kojiq dah 8 tahun, darjah 2 jika sekolah biasa. Tapi di kelas khas, mereka diletakkan dalam kelas mengikut kebolehan, bukan umur. Kojiq sekarang dalam kelas pertengahan. Tapi di Kindy, dia dah mula masuk kelas akademik beberapa bulan lepas, syukur sangat! Maksudnya belajar membaca, mengira macam budak lain, tapi pada kadar yang sangat perlahan la.

Aku sendiri dah mula nampak tanda-tanda kematangan Kojiq berbanding dulu. He is less restless dan kadang2 lebih well-behaved dari adiknya Enysh! Kalau pegi ke mall pun, dia dah tak berlari macam dulu, in fact tak perlu pegang tangan dia all the time bila berjalan di tempat public. Dia juga dah mula initiate interaction, having short 4-5 words conversation. Dan dia juga dah boleh bermain bersama dengan Enysh, walaupun selalu gak la diorang me'lepuk' each other bila berebut mainan.. like other normal kids, alhamduliLlah.

OK, will write more soon, insyaAllah. Till then, thank you for reading (ada ke orang baca???), semoga Allah memelihara kita semua di dalam baraqahNya!

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