Friday Family Feautre
Introducing Chase Sampson, 10 years old and thriving.
Chase was always a very smart little boy. Always ahead of peers in speech. He can talk to any adult in the room and his teachers always told us that he is a “friend to all”. Chase is very encouraging and supportive of his friends and siblings. He puts others first, always. Chase has 3 younger siblings. He often says he has it the hardest because they get away with everything. Ha!
Chase is a happy, loving, sweet big brother and always the first to share. He always has a smile on his face.
Back in the summer of 2017, I was putting my 3 to bed. I have a habit of lying with them at bedtime because those are the sweetest moments. The moments they will tell you everything about their day.
As Chase was drifting off to sleep, he started to twitch. It only lasted a short time but it scared me. It was weird. I thought, was that just a seizure? I called my sister who is a physician and she told me that I was overreacting and I was such a hypochondriac. I called my husband who was in Malaysia for work (he worked on ships where he would be gone 2-4 months at a time) and he said “you are such a hypochondriac” but if you really think something happened, then take a video next time. So, I put Chase in bed with me that night. At about 4 am, Chase had a full-blown seizure for a minute. I took a video and was able to show it to the doctor. I called my nurse friend who told me to take him to the ER immediately and bring my other 2 to her. We get to the ER and he is immediately admitted. Long story short, we had every test run you could think of because we needed to get my husband home if need be. And I needed answers. I needed to know that it wasn’t something worse. Chase was diagnosed with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy. He is now medicated and able to live a normal active 10 year old boy life. But still has always been a challenge. We are hoping and praying one day he can outgrow it.
Fast forward to Covid…..Chase is now in 2nd grade for that first year of 2020. We had a new baby, a 4 year old, a kindergartener, and Chase, 7. My husband was in Australia for months on end when everything shuts down. I am trying to raise this sweet family but having a very difficult time trying to teach Chase. He didn’t want to listen to me or do any work. We did the bare minimum that year. 3rd grade rolls around and he is STRUGGLING. Bad! We would sit down at 8 am to start his assignments and he would not wrap up until 4 pm. I knew something was off. I had mentioned before to other teachers that I thought it was strange that he was mixing up his B’s and D’s and was having a very hard time reading. After private testing (because the public school couldn’t test him until the end of his 3rd grade year- so that would’ve been a year wasted), we get the diagnosis that he is moderate-severe dyslexic. Chase has always been a hard worker. He is loved by all of his teachers. He is friends with everyone. He made good grades because he worked his behind off. BUT….he was giving his everything to try and do this work that he just couldn’t do or understand. Public schools are just not able to give dyslexic children the tools they need to learn to read. If every public school teacher were given the gift of Orton Gillingham training, then all of these students who have a form of dyslexia would be able to learn just like everyone else. After much research, Camperdown was on our radar! We are so fortunate that we have a school as amazing as Camperdown in our community. They are seriously magic at that school. They definitely have some sort of magic wand they waver over all of the children! He is now in 4th grade and is absolutely thriving in all aspects of school and life. Chase is an excellent baseball player. It is by far his favorite sport. Although he does love flag football too. Chase loves to be outside, always. He comes home from school and goes outside. Spends his weekends, outside. He loves to mountain bike, paddle board, hike, and climb. Chase has a love for all animals too. During Covid, he built the coolest tree fort, which is what he would work on during his breaks during those long school days. We have so much to be thankful for.
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