"Push!"

My mind said, "Push!" but whether my epidural-numbed belly responded I will never be quite sure.
The surgeon said it did, but maybe he just wanted me to feel as involved as possible, given that fate had elected that he should do me out of a job.

"It's coming!"

There was a pregnant pause.

"How's the mouth?" I asked tentatively, trying to suppress memories of the birth, eighteen month ago of our handicapped son. His harelip had been the first sign of his many problems.

"Lovely, a rosebud!" This from the pediatrician ("invited along to see fair play" as the surgeon had tactfully put it).

"No problems?"

"She's perfect!" The surgeon had laid his caesarian instruments aside and was triumphantly holding a small, messy, furious baby. There was a sigh of satisfaction from students, nurses, anesthetist, pediatrician and surgeon. Paul, holding my hand, looked relieved, no, radiant

"Are you sure? Show me!" He was right. She was perfect. I don't know if I laughed or cried.

For nine months I had feared that my baby might be as handicapped as her much-loved brother who had died at the age of 3 months of Patau's syndrome, an extra chromosome number 13 which left him deaf, blind, with a heart defect, a hare lip and a cleft palate and a couple of extra fingers and toes. We'd had to rewrite "This little piggy."

I was a pro-life campaigner who would have taken no action even if amniocentesis had suggested 'trouble', and for nine months I had worried endlessly, praying repeatedly as I had for both Catherine, now 3 years old, and Petey, now 18 months dead. "Holy, Happy and Healthy, Lord, and if there are graces to spare make then intelligent and good-looking as well!"

Kate had got the lot, but Petey? Well, he'd got the first and most important one. I had already decided that Susie at least had health and good looks. The others we would find out about later. I did not know then, however, that those nine months of anxiety might well have been the cause of many problems that were to dog Susie's childhood.

Somewhat cleaner and checked over by the pediatrician, Susie was handed to me wrapped modestly in a little white sheet.
I gazed in awe. She was beautiful! I checked her fingers and toes had to see for myself, two sets of ten perfect pink piggies.
She was still raging at her rude awakening, and a perceptive nurse shielded her eyes from the glare of the theatre lamp.

Susie brought with her great joy, but she also brought a series of physical, emotional, social and developmental problems, which were to take us on a long and difficult journey along what seemed like a never-ending learning curve. Sometimes we would feel lost, sometimes we would feel like giving up, but already the extraordinary and unexpected end of our journey has softened the memory of it.

First signs of trouble

Susie was a little jaundiced after birth and then placid during those first few months, but by five months she had become very demanding and lively. A ferocious breast feeder who drew blood when five days old with her enthusiasm, she would eat only packet food and spurned the wholesome concoctions I would lovingly sieve for her.

She was allergic, and if she touched anything containing egg she would come up in angry red weals. She had eczema, and we spent hours creaming her. I remember a psychologist friend, who was deeply involved in complementary medicine and research into foetal experience, telling me to handle her as much as possible.

"She missed out on all that pushing she would have had if she'd arrived by the normal channels. Give it to her now."

I followed his advice, though it sounded very 'alternative', but we would remember it nine years on.

Susie had constant ear trouble and her eardrums had perforated four times before her first birthday, but our first real crisis came in October when she was nearly 8 months old. Croup. She developed a harsh, dry cough which would peak every half hour into an uncontrollable attack of crying arid barking. No amount of steam could relieve it and she spent a week in the local hospital where finally a cortisone injection saw an end to it.

The following October we were back again in hospital with her. Poor little Kate! I often wonder how negative it was for her to be dumped with a kindly neighbour while Mummy and Daddy rushed off into the night with her sickly sibling. Much later we were advised to always take her with us. It might not be fun, but she would not feel left out.

That is why she still remembers a gloriously gory New Year's dawn, full of blood and drunks in Casualty ... "Just like television!" she exclaimed excitedly. Whether this was really better for her psychologically I shall never know, but she found it tremendous fun!

By the time Susie was two and a half she was an inhaler-carrying asthmatic. But throughout all her problems her humour and zest for life shone through. "This is yummy, Mummy, would you like a go?" she would say, as she wheezed her way through a session on the nebulizer in Casualty.

"It's a phase," people would say to us. "She'll grow out of it." Or "Wait till she's seven, they grow out of it at seven." We waited ... and waited!

She was a lively little soul. Even when she was tired, she seemed to become more active rather than less. When she wasn't ill she was at the top of the climbing frame or up a tree or seeing how high she could make the swing go. She was reckless though, and didn't seem to realise that if she let go, she might fall.. . She cost us a fortune in plasters!

Unwillingly to school

School started well. Kate had already introduced her to the class goldfish, and lessons held no fears.

When she came home unhappy that other children wouldn't hold hands with her because of her eczema, we comforted her and the next day she bounced happily back.

We wondered why she constantly brought the same book home to read. It said "Look!" on every page. Years later she confided that she felt safe with it. Her writing was messy. At our first parents' meeting it was clear that Susie was not of much interest. Teachers had always greeted us radiantly to sing Kate's praises, but now they were quite happy to bemoan Susie's carelessness and pass quickly on to the next set of parents.

At seven, Susie was given thick glasses with bottle-bottom lenses, and we were told that things would now improve. That summer a more enlightened teacher mentioned the word 'dyslexia' to me and I went home in tears. That night I complained to Paul that in our travels along the great learning curve of parenthood, I had researched eczema, croup, asthma, ear infections, long sight, both orthodox medical options and 'alternatives', and I did not feel I could take another problem on board.

Susie's next teacher was very definite: "Look children, this is Susie's work. It's very bad. Make sure you don't do it like this." And at the parents meeting: "Nonsense, of course she's not dyslexic. There's no such thing. She's just slapdash and careless."

One day that spring Susie suddenly announced: "Everything I see is purple". I rushed her to the optician who instantly referred us to our G.P. as an emergency. The G.P. sent us straight to the nearest hospital with a good eye department. A week later Susie was seen at Great Ormond Street . The kind and thorough staff there spent a morning testing her, and at the end of which we were told that it was stress. I was massively relieved, but found it hard not to blame Susie for all the worry we had experienced. After all, it was only stress. I was to learn my lesson.

Meanwhile her hearing deteriorated. The hospital which monitored it regularly thought she might need an operation. The problem fluctuated. We were on tenterhooks. Could she hear or not? The machines sometimes said that she could; on one occasion, we were told that it was clear that the muscles of her inner ear were faulty. Finally, it seemed as though the diagnosis here again was "stress". Wherever had we gone wrong?

Susie was now eight.

She could still not tie her laces. Her tie was always a mess. She never knew what time it was or whether her next meal would be lunch or tea. She wasn't at all sure about the left and right idea and used either hand for many tasks. The outcome seemed clumsy whichever hand she used.

We developed a family joke. When told, "Turn right Susie", she would say: "Which right?"

She was untidy and disorganised, horribly lively, accident prone, still totally adorable, fun, intuitive, caring, affectionate and wonderful to hold deep, important conversations with, but SCATTY!

Sometimes I felt that there were little knobs in her brain like fuse circuit breakers which would flick to the off position without any warning and totally impede functioning which on any other day could be normal. The Schools Psychologist had declared that there was no dyslexia problem and that she was Cambridge first degree material. Meanwhile, she disliked reading and would find any excuse to avoid it.

Susie's school report that summer was a classic: "Susie needs to concentrate when reading. She omits words, which change the meaning of a sentence. Lacks perseverance.......should discipline herself into being more careful..If only she could take more care and not rush her work." To be fair, Susie must have been very frustrating. None of the teachers seemed familiar with the dyslexic's 'good days and bad days' problem. Nor would there have been any reason to apply it to Susie who had been declared not dyslexic.

"I know she can do it. I've seen her do it before." There was no point in saying: "Yes, but today is a bad day." We were after all, only misguided parents deluding ourselves into thinking our daughter was more able than she was.

By the age of ten, Susie was still having a lot of time off school with croup or asthma or ear infections. She had few friends and would often cry on her way to school. Mornings were dreadful. I myself am scatty, and to have to badger an unwilling, disorganised child through all the preparations which I too found hard was a wretched task.

This year's teacher was also confrontational in her approach. She knew that a firm hand was the only answer.

My father, whom Susie adored, had been ill for some time and lay dying in hospital. The school was warned. The day he died, Susie was kept in at playtime to correct her spelling mistakes four hundred times.

One evening in June Susie came out of school in tears again."Somebody left a dirty note in my desk." Next day, "we hate Susie" appeared on the toilet wall. That week brought a series of poison pen letters and graffiti, which culminated in a visit from the school police officer. It was never discovered who was responsible for all those cruel notes.

The class teacher made all the children write an essay entitled "Why Susie?" She felt humiliated, unloved and desperately vulnerable. None of the staff could explain Susie's unpopularity. It was then that we began to wonder if it was all part of some odd dyslexic syndrome.

That summer we offered to send her to a different school. "Thanks, but I'm not going to let this beat me."

By mid-September, after two weeks of passive bullying we took Susie to an independent school where she settled in well. At last life was looking good. She made friends, was put in the netball team. The teachers went out of their way to recognise the qualities in her - an unfamiliar and much appreciated phenomenon. Socially Susie shone. Meanwhile, her spelling (always poor) became more obviously erratic. She began to reverse letters, and her left/right confusion became worse than ever. She still didn't know the months of the year and was quite unable to use an index.

An explanation at last

This time we did not ask to see the Schools Psychologist. We took Susie to the Dyslexic Institute, where we were told that she was dyslexic, having particular difficulties in "spelling and maths, short term auditory and visual memory, and processing information at speed."

The relief was immense. "I'm not stupid, Mummy, I'm just dyslexic."

The G.P. was sympathetic but not involved. He told us that dyslexia was not clinical. He had no role to play in this particular problem of Susie's. "Nobody can cure you, Susie," he added "but the experts can help you to cope."

Spelling lessons now began for Susie, and on the teacher's recommendation, we bought her a laptop computer. She was delighted with it. At least she could turn out work that looked good. But the laptop too had its downside. Other girls were jealous and passed catty remarks and Susie began to use it less and less.

At the back of my mind was the constant niggling worry: "Spelling is the least of our problems. How will she learn to remember facts, to organise herself, to cross the road without risking her life? How can we prevent her being so accident-prone? She wants to be a surgeon. How will she study if she can''t even use an index? Heaven help her patients if she can't resolve her left/right confusion!"

Crisis

Meanwhile acute abdominal pain was added to her list of ongoing symptoms. Then in March, just after her eleventh birthday, she started to 'faint'. By June she was 'fainting' up to three times a day, twitching, as she lay unconscious for up to half an hour. The hospital said 'stress'..where had we heard that before?

The school staff were massively supportive. One day the school secretary told me kindly not to worry because, although Susie had stopped breathing, she had hit her on the chest and 'got her going again.'

We contacted the paediatrician friend who had been present at Susie's birth and who had cared for Petey. He admitted her to the hospital where she was born. She stayed for two weeks. We brought her home, reassured that there was nothing sinister and with the ever-recurrent word 'stress' ringing in our ears. She learned to literally to 'get a grip.'

If she grasped her own arm tight and couldn't feel it, she would remain seated. Thus, slowly she grew confident again. She now had a degree of control over the attacks and could forestall them. Her croup, hay fever, asthma and eczema were still worse than they had been and she was noticeably more travel-sick. We had drawers full of assorted puffers, sprays and creams.

In September Susie, now eleven, started secondary school. Although she still experienced dramatic and unpredictable mood swings, she seemed happy. That autumn she suddenly started to turn out pages of mirror-writing. It seemed that only the margin told her which side to start writing. If there was no margin, she'd start from whichever side she fancied and if it was from the right, she would mirror-write. She was oblivious to this until it was pointed out by irritated teachers who seemed to feel it was an attention-seeking device. Some mornings, Susie would try to get out of bed the wrong side. As the bed was against the wall, this was not a good move! Poor Susie, she knew that this meant she would have a 'bad day'.

Back we went to the Schools Psychology Department, but to the Principal this time. "The child needs a statement of special needs! We must start at once!"

As we attended all the assessments involved in the statementing process which aimed to assess Susie's problems and identify means of resolving them, more and more emerged. She was clumsy. She also had poor balance, poor fine motor control, poor co-ordination, poor proprioception, which I later found out was the ability to know where ones bits and pieces (limbs and things) were at a given moment. Apparently without good proprioception, even if you don't know you don't have it, you get tired trying to keep upright and tend to wiggle and sit on your feet to keep in touch with yourself. More enjoyably, you might just cuddle up to whoever's around. Not affection after all! Another step upward on Mummy and Daddy's big learning curve!

There were more doubts and contradictions about her hearing: "She is moderately deaf"....."Her hearing is fine."

Brushing to the rescue

By mid-December, we were getting altitude sickness as we wobbled on top of our learning curve. It was then that my Mother stepped in. "This seems ridiculous but I thought you should see it."

"This" was an article in a weekend paper supplement about an engineer turned psychotherapist (for goodness sake!) who claimed that many developmental problems were due to the presence of baby reflexes and that if these reflexes were stroked away by trying to recreate womb-like sensations, barriers to development would disappear.

The vital tool in this totally 'way out' approach to healing was a paintbrush! What rubbish! Not only that, but the cost could be close on a thousand pounds. Good Lord, that was the cost of a spelling teacher for two years! ......but then, we might not need the teacher if it worked.....of course it wouldn't work, what nonsense! So we sent for the information pack.

Out of curiosity we filled in the questionnaire. Susie scored 36. According to Mr. Clarke, if you score more than 6 you can be helped! Again, out of curiosity, we went for the initial assessment. This took place in hired premises in a nearby natural health centre.

My heart sank as we entered the deeply alternative health shop, bristling with crystals, joss-sticks, signs of the zodiac and whale song. Paul, straight back from work and still in his suit, looked incongruous as he ducked to avoid collision with a crystal mobile. Surely the therapist would present a more orthodox front. A grinning man in rolled up shirtsleeves ushered us down into the basement past a notice: "Quiet please, hypnotherapy in progress."

I had dabbled in homeopathy but, the daughter of a doctor, I was essentially a white coat and stethoscope person. Paul and I looked at each other: "Help!"

Mr. Shirtsleeves introduced himself as Steve Clarke. He didn't look like an engineer, or a psychotherapist. Worst of all instead of a stethoscope, he wore, wait for it........a paintbrush, tucked casually behind his ear!

After an absorbing twenty minutes of assorted activities and assessments however, I felt as if we had at last met someone who not only understood all of Susie's problems, but could also explain why she had them. He told us details about her childhood that only Paul and I could possibly know: her erratic feeding, her sweet tooth, her placid beginnings, her subsequent hyperactivity, right down to the oddly disturbing monkey-like little fist which I would notice whilst she was sleeping. It reminded me of spastics I had known, and I had always pushed the image right back into the darkest recesses of my mind.

There were explanations, reassurances. He even explained the 'deafness'. She did not yet have a dominant ear, so messages took longer getting through to the brain. Not only that but she could not select the sound she was attending to, so that if the rain pattered on the window pane and somebody shuffled their feet whilst homework was being announced, Susie had no chance.

The reading and copying problem was so simple when explained. Susie's eyes literally wobbled when travelling both horizontally and vertically. We saw this for ourselves and wondered why other specialists had never commented on the problem.

We saw too how Susie's pupil reacted inappropriately to light. When a torch was shone in her eye in a darkened room, the pupil went small as one would expect, but then increased dramatically in size. No wonder it was difficult for her to look at a bright white page, or to sit in a brightly-lit room.

All the problems Susie ever had, going right back to the croup, the eczema, the hyperactivity, the bullying, even the collapsing, were apparently linked with each other in an intricate pattern of developmental delay. So why had all this happened to Susie?

Nobody can ever be sure but one possibility was that, as a result of my anxiety during pregnancy, poor Susie may have received an 'over-dose' of maternal adrenaline which impeded some of her normal pre-birth development.

Another hypothesis was that toxins ingested during pregnancy could have blocked development. Why did her problems seem worse now? Why had she only just started mirror writing? Apparently puberty can often bring an intensification of developmental problems.

Steve brushed parts of her hands and face with the symbol of office we had noted behind his ear. Strangely enough, some of the parts brushed continued to 'fizz, buzz and itch' for several minutes. This apparently indicated the presence of baby reflexes, which were outstaying their welcome.

She still had her Moro reflex too. When she was a baby the doctor had routinely checked her for its presence by holding her and then releasing his support of her head. Her arms had instinctively been flung out wide. They did the same when Steve checked her, although this reflex should have gone by the time she was three months old. The presence of this reflex explained her restlessness, her need to be in control of a situation, as well as her apparently contradictory vulnerability and need for constant reassurance.

Then came the most exciting words I could hear: "She's one of ours." The treatment would help her! Wow!

Susie was distinctly dubious on the way home. She didn't want her hopes falsely raised. Justifiably too, she thought the paintbrush concept ridiculous. How on earth could she explain it to her friends?!

Over a large bottle of wine, we talked through the evening. Paul was definitely interested, but understandably concerned about the money. We did more sums.

If the paintbrush man was right and the treatment might also improve her health, we could not only save money on the spelling lessons, computer software and perhaps schooling, but also on medication when she was older. Susie might even become the surgeon of her dreams. Then she could pay us back with interest!

If he was wrong, we would still sleep sound; after all, it's only money....that last didn't quite convince, but we worked on it. Besides, he couldn't be a con man. No one, however daft, would really try to con the world in shirtsleeves with a paintbrush behind his ear!

Two days later we made an appointment.

Susie was to see a therapist at Datchet (a town near Windsor).

My Mother was appalled but did her best to keep an open mind.

It was a cold, wet, miserable, January day, and I spent the journey battling with a host of misgivings. The therapist, paintbrush behind ear, was gentle, not patronising, aware of Susie's feelings.

We watched her in awe, as she painstakingly made a tiny mirror copy of the drawings she was given to reproduce and then copied her mirror image back to normal size. This was the method she had devised by herself to combat her 'Alice through the looking glass syndrome'! Her little coping strategy, instead of being a source of ridicule, clearly inspired deep respect.

It was a long assessment with two or three banana breaks. We were new to the world of banana therapy!

When Susie was over-stimulated, she would produce a mass of adrenaline. Her pupils would grow enormous, regardless of the available light. Her complexion would change, and around the mouth and eyes a kind of blue transparent pallor revealed a strain on the system.

Apparently, what we looked on, as just one unique aspect of the Susie package was well known to the paintbrush people.... inappropriate adrenaline, subsequent loss of potassium, give the kid a banana, let her lie down for a while. It worked. If only I'd known the previous summer! I used to watch her pupils dilate before her 'faints' and wonder secretly if this was perhaps just one manifestation of some terrible brain disorder.

Treatment had not yet begun, but already so many questions were being answered, so many little pieces of the Susie puzzle were slipping into place.

The report reading a week later was fascinating. There are four different categories of reflex: twenty-five foetal, sixteen primitive, five infant and thirteen postural. Each of these was given a score. The perfect person would score zero. Foetals could only score zero or one The others score between zero and four depending on the reflex strength. Susie scored fifty! All should have been and gone before or during Susie's first years of life. Some of them had not yet arrived!

A brush with life

We drove home with a report, which opened up a whole new world of information about Susie, an explanatory tape, and our brush. A lot of explaining was needed. We were to brush very specific areas on Susie's hands and face, 30 strokes on each area morning and evening for 5 weeks, until our next assessment. We were going to keep very quite about it too!

Susie was still non-committal, Kate was appalled, Mother sceptical.

Three weeks later, just before her twelfth birthday, Susie bounded downstairs. "Look Mummy!" She quickly touched thumb to fingers in succession both hands, eyes open, eyes closed. We were amazed.

Co-ordination and fine motor control were both weaknesses, and previously her attempts at this particular exercise had been frustrating and ineffectual.

"And look!" She stretched out her arm and touched her finger to nose, eyes open, eyes shut, slowly and at speed. We were encouraging, but tried not to get too excited. We kept telling ourselves it could be just a coincidence.

The next Saturday she rushed home from Gym Club. "I did slow leg lifts on the balance bar." Apparently everybody had clapped her because, although supple and agile, her balance was always poor. Again, we were pleased but careful not to read too much into it.

Three days later the trumpet teacher wandered into the kitchen looking bemused. "I don't know what's happened. That was a really good lesson. She can do it!"

I toyed with saying, "Well actually, what's happened is that we've been stroking her hands and face with a paintbrush every day," but discretion won through, and the trumpet teacher may never know why one of his one-time mediocre students got a distinction in her two latest trumpet exams!

The ability to list all twelve months in order arrived next, hotly pursued by development of routines and the organisational skills which enabled her to get herself to the right place at the right time with the right equipment.

When we took Susie back to Steve for her first review, he grinned, unsurprised but pleased with her progress. "You'd think it was voodoo if you didn't know any better," he commented wryly.

We went home with a new set of strokes to carry out, elated and fascinated to see what would be 'unblocked' next.

We attended about seven reviews in all. They were always happy exciting times.

Checking the reflexes would confirm that Susie's score was sinking lower and lower and that her newfound skills were not temporary phenomena but permanent acquisitions. What she was experiencing was familiar to the therapists, indeed it was what they were expecting. However, we were never told what to expect. There was no possibility of autosuggestion, and some of the gifts that Susie received were totally unexpected, out of the blue.

Perhaps the most exciting 'unblocking' for Susie was when her rounders team needed a rounder to win. Susie was last to bat. The other team taunted them: "It's Susie's go now so we're bound to win." Susie's bat made a full and effective contact with the ball for the first time in her life and she got a rounder. The opposition were aghast, her own team delighted but incredulous.

By April, a month after her twelfth birthday, she could no longer mirror-write, her spelling had improved, and her awareness of time as a tool had developed. She travelled to Crete on the plane with no ear problems or travel sickness.

There was a down side to all this. Mood swings increased, and when Susie was not elated over discovery of a newborn skill, she was often in tears or temper. We had been warned, we were firm but supportive and waited for the storms to pass.

In May she stopped using her glasses because she could see just as well without them. Her new, young optician confirmed this. He had seen Susie's tracking and convergence problems. He now noted that these were now no longer present.

She found she could copy from the board with ease and read with pleasure. She realised that she could remember the phone numbers of all her friends.

One day I asked her to tell me about her science lesson. She was quiet for a moment and then said: "Mum, if I think myself back into the science lab., I can hear my teacher's voice and hear exactly what she taught us." She then gave me a word-for-word account of the lesson. I'm careful what I ask now!

The time came to see if any of Susie's allergies had been helped. This would be a tricky one. If she so much as touched egg, her skin would come up in raised, itchy, pink blotches. She couldn't even eat some chocolate because the lecithin in it had occasional traces of egg. I placed a small piece of egg on the soft inner arm, but within five minutes the classic reaction was there.....a small angry patch.

Two weeks later we tried again. No swelling, no colour change, no itching. Next day I gave her a pea-sized portion of boiled egg to eat. No problem. Two days later she had half a spoonful. By the end of May she was tucking into a whole boiled egg with gusto and no repercussions.

I, meanwhile, still revel in picking packets off the supermarket shelves without having to scrutinise the ingredients list for the slightest hint of egg.

We went through the same careful process with stoned fruit, and now, far from bringing on the acute asthma attacks of the past, they are a treat, spiced by the sense of 'forbidden fruit' that still lingers on!

Before we discovered the paint brush, we had been so concerned at the number of problems emerging during Susie's statementing process that we had requested an appointment with a special needs doctor in a big London hospital. By the time we received a date, five months after we started brushing, Susie had none of the problems, which were listed, on her report.

We consulted the doctor, who was clearly unconvinced by Susie's dramatic turnabout and told us to keep the appointment. We were loath to waste NHS time, but loath also to go against our G.P's advice.

Before Susie was assessed by the specialist, we somewhat diffidently explained the therapy Susie had been undergoing and how we feared we might be wasting her time. The doctor smiled indulgently and said that, in view of the reports from the psychologist, the occupational therapist and the Dyslexia Institute, which she had in front of her, she was sure they would find something.

Susie was assessed for two hours.

The three people who saw her could find no problem except a certain hesitancy about reciting the months of the year backwards and a slight clenching of the fist when balancing. We were unsurprised. Unsurprised too by the response: "It's a coincidence. It's merely delayed maturation."

We didn't bother to argue. We were too happy.

We had offered the information about Susie's treatment. We hope that one day, when they have met many other little 'paintbrush coincidences' like Susie, orthodox practitioners will look on paintbrush power as a reality and absorb it into the world of orthodox medicine.

I suppose that it will need a thousand controlled experiments on a thousand Susies before the paintbrush aquires genuine credibility in the orthodox world.

As might be guessed, the mood swings are now history, and as a result Susie and Kate are much better friends than before. Susie's adrenaline now knows its role.

Two types of stress have been removed, the stress produced by her problems and that produced by her over exuberant adrenal glands. Her asthma is minimal, as neither stress nor allergies are major factors now. Her croup is gone and her hay fever and eczema dramatically improved.

Her immune system is functioning more efficiently and the only time off school she has had this year was for an ankle sprained in the inter-schools athletic competition! She is neither reckless nor accident-prone any more.

She is confidently and competently ambidextrous but still derives great pleasure from the fact that, though she can use either hand, she doesn't confuse them. She has become quite tidy and sometimes clears up behind me!

Her writing is less than copperplate however, and her spelling is mediocre. Frankly, we have been given so much, we are not complaining!

Although happier and more confident, she has had no personality change and is still her warm, affectionate, intuitive self. It is now sixteen months since we first took the paintbrush to her.

Like many other paintbrush prodigies about whom we read on out first visit to Datchet, the jigsaw puzzle is now a beautiful completed picture.

She got 100% in a recent French listening test. The Latin teacher refers to her a s "star pupil.' The art teacher says that she is 'highly talented.' She has just won the school gymnastic trophy.

The laptop is only ever used for computer games, and yes, we no longer need to pay out for spelling lessons! Even Mother is impressed.

Perhaps the highest compliment of all is that Susie has been put in charge of helping to get her scatty new friend organised!

Whatever she makes of her future, Paul and I know that she will not be unnecessarily hampered by all the frustrating handicaps of her past. Susie, thirteen, still wants to be a doctor. It does now look like a genuine possibility and not a fantasy.

Her main concern is one of modest innovation, she would like to bring to the world of orthodox medicine.....the paintbrush.

This account is dedicated to all those, young and old who can identify with Susie, to their parents, to our friends who said "Go for it!" and to the paintbrush treatment who made this a "happy ever after" story.

There is nothing fictitious in this story except the names of Susie and her family.