Names of individuals and places have been replaced in this article for reasons of privacy.

We had known since Sarah was a 28-week foetus in the womb that there was fluid in the ventricles of her brain. Amniocentesis blood results suggested Turners Syndrome mosaicism: this was proved incorrect after birth, following further blood tests.

After birth she had two admissions with jaundice and two with bronchiolitis and she was admitted to the high dependency unit. Her thyroid function was initially poor, but has since improved.

We live in Aberdeen, and I work part-time as a District Nurse and my husband Ian is a full-time MLSO at our local hospital. Our son, Matthew, is five and has just started school. Sarah was three in July and started her pre-school year at nursery in August.

Generally, we knew her development was delayed, and gloomy predictions were made by various health-care professionals as to a possible diagnosis. I can say now that we were all very anxious.

When we were told of the probable Sotos Syndrome diagnosis, we were immediately on the Internet for any information we could find – and found the SSSA in America. We found their guidelines website page to be an absolute image of the symptoms and features that Sarah displays… right down to the lack of enamel on her teeth (her front tooth is black), and were ecstatic to see that the outlook may not be so bad at all.

On joining the Child Growth Foundation, we hoped to find other families in similar situations and perhaps some who are further down the line, to share knowledge and tips, etc.

Sarah went through the pre-school assessment process and has been placed in a mainstream council nursery with added support for speech, play and physiotherapy at set times. We are pleased with her progress.

I am currently searching for information on toilet-training in children with low muscle tone. Perhaps there is no specific information other than to wait until the child is ready! Your comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

Recently I was successful in applying for parental leave without the original guidelines set by the government. Sarah was born before December 1999, but as a health service employee in Scotland I am entitled to the same conditions as my colleagues. This translates to all such employees with a child under five years being entitled to four weeks a year parental leave. The first four weeks are paid for each child; after this it is unpaid leave.

This has made such a difference to our lives; relieving the stress of finding enough annual leave days to attend outpatient and speech therapy appointments. I was on the verge of resigning when I discovered this new right (not through my boss, I might add).

We also were successful in our application for Sarah’s DLA, although we were reluctant to apply at first. I think that the form might put a lot of people off, but there are lots of professionals who can assist in filling in the form.

SOTOS: Sarah Update

Names of individuals and places have been replaced in this article for reasons of privacy

Sarah is now twelve and a half. She is about 5ft 8 tall, approx 12 stone and wears size 10 shoes.

Sarah commenced her local secondary school last August in Aberdeen. She is at a mainstream school with support from ‘Support for Learning’ staff for most of the day, and she settled in really quickly. I did visit a couple of schools before accepting her place at the local school though. The school we chose seemed to be offering a good support department, and more importantly as far as she was concerned, her friends from primary school were all going there.

Sarah’s recent report on parent’s night was that she is a happy child, is interested in all her subjects, tries hard, and behaves well. Maths has continued to be a problem for her; she is allowed to use a calculator and gets lots of assistance. She rarely gets homework.

There have been a couple of small problems but these were sorted out quickly with minimum fuss. One was that Sarah felt overwhelmed in the crowded changing rooms at PE, so they have allocated her a small room to get changed in, just for her. Another problem was that she couldn’t participate fully in PE because she gets very tired due to her low muscle tone, and finds some of the activities more difficult than other children. Her PE teacher has adapted some of them e.g. During badminton she uses a balloon instead of a shuttlecock. Sarah doesn’t seem to mind that this makes her different as she is enjoying it so much, and is therefore getting precious exercise.

At lunchtimes Sarah gets out of class five minutes early to give her more time to get to the dining room, because she was always at the end of the queue and didn’t then have time to eat a meal, as she takes a bit longer to eat than others. This is working well, and she is enjoying a healthy meal instead of grabbing a quick Panini.

Sarah hasn’t gone out at break-time into the school grounds so far – preferring to go to the Base where they have lunchtime activities running. She is not allowed to leave the school grounds, and so far she has not attempted to go with her old friends from primary to the local shops. Reasons for this are that she has little road sense, and is petrified of dogs – she would step into the road in front of a car to avoid a dog. This is something that we will have to address. If the dog is on a lead then it’s deemed ‘safe’ and she might even talk to it. This stems from when she was little and was knocked over by two large boisterous dogs on a beach. When we are out together we practise crossing roads, but she is easily distracted.

Outside school, Sarah does not attend any mainstream clubs. She used to attend Girls Brigade – this lasted three or four years, then she became disenchanted with it due to the amount of ball sports they were playing at the meetings.

Sarah has attended various dance classes over the years with varying success, but none at present.

Her favourite evening at present is Tuesday, when she goes to the local disabled children’s club. She has friends there – mainly among the volunteer adults, but also some of the girls her age that she has known for years.

We try to go swimming as much as possible to help keep her weight down, and she has disability swimming class on a Tuesday also. Sarah can swim up to six or eight lengths of the 25m pool very well.

Her other regular social event is on Saturday when she goes out with a paid carer from a support agency for four hours. She has the same carer every week and they get on well. Usually they go to the cinema, but recently Sarah has had a horse-riding lesson slot at a ‘Riding for the Disabled’ stable locally, which she loves now after lots of encouragement and false starts. This has been great for her confidence and her muscle tone.

Health wise, Sarah has been fairly well this last year, although she does complain at times of terrible fatigue and has missed school days occasionally because of it. We have had blood screened with no obvious cause identified, and I think they are putting it down to changes in her body, the ravages of having to walk a lot more between classes, and all the schooling changes now that she is at secondary school.

She attends Endocrinology (keeping an eye on her height / weight / development), Orthotics (inserts in her shoes), Audiology (reduced hearing variable in both ears) and Dermatology (eczema and allergies).

Sarah had a physiotherapy slot over the last six months, which has now finished, and we continue with the exercises at home. This was after a referral by the school doctor to see if she could get any relief from her painful feet. The physio discovered that her hamstrings were too tight due to the excessive growth rate, and exercises have lengthened them. We now have an open appointment should this happen again, and I have been shown how to assess this.

The only medication she takes is Fybogel for her chronic constipation, and Eye Q. She had an ultrasound scan of her kidneys in December to check for reflux, because the endocrinologist had a new registrar who had been looking into Sotos syndrome and decided it would be worth ruling this out as a cause of her fatigue. Although she has not had UTI’s confirmed by urine sample testing more than a couple of times in her life, we are assuming that all was well as we were not contacted to tell us otherwise and we are not due back to clinic until August. I asked for an ultrasound scan of her ovaries while they were at it, as there had been mention years ago that it would be worth checking out that they develop correctly once she got to age twelve, and all parts were present and correct thankfully.

Sarah is trying hard to always eat healthily and to take as much exercise as possible. I have bought her active games for the Wii – she likes Just Dance. This seems to be the most important area to focus on at present, and has been for the last few years. We have spoken to a dietician, but they do not have the resources, it seems, to see her regularly. Her low muscle tone makes it harder for her to exercise for extended periods, and gaining weight only makes this worse, so it is a vicious circle and we are currently battling to break it.

Sarah is very sociable when she gets the chance, and fashion-conscious, as is usual for a twelve year old girl. She spends her winter evenings watching programmes on TV about fashion and make-up, and then practising in her room. She knows exactly what clothes she likes and won’t usually wear anything she doesn’t think is ‘in’. Sarah will look up websites to find clothes she likes then direct me to them, with hope! Recently we bought a hooded sweatshirt with a JLS logo from an online shop that she had spotted in her size (adult size 16). Sarah also likes going to watch musical stage shows and small venue concerts – we had to go and see Jedward when they were in Aberdeen last year. Sarah doesn’t see her friends from school out of school times yet – perhaps this will come? She has friends in my friends’ children – a lot of whom have special needs of some sort, as that is what has brought us all together – our children. We go on holiday and away for weekends with these friends and her brother Matthew.

We are hoping to be at the conference this year in November, having missed it last year. And… I have discovered a company (www.magnusshoes.com) that sells shoes for big feet. I’d been doing an online search and this was the only company I found selling big shoes in the kind of styles that Sarah would want to wear, and would be able to wear with inserts in her shoes. By coincidence their main base is in Northampton, so I therefore plan to get there early on the Friday before the shop shuts at 4pm, to check out their winter range. If anyone else is interested then I am enquiring if they would be willing to keep the shop open a bit longer on Saturday the 5th, (it shuts at 12pm) or whether they could send someone to the Hilton with some of their product range. The shoes range from £45 to £90. We have ordered from them this week, and I have spoken to them on the phone to get more information on their shoes, in our bid to get new school shoes. Sarah hasn’t worn them yet to be able to give a recommendation of the wear, but they are of a high quality. I don’t know how many of you have big feet issues, but if you are interested in the shop for the Saturday then please let Jenny or myself know so we can gauge interest. Maybe someone else has bought from this company and can let us know what they thought of them.