Parker (2025)

Written by Katherine, Parker’s mum (South Australia, March 2025)

Parker’s story was first published by TSA in 2020 when Parker was 4 years old and just starting Kindergarten. Parker’s mum Katherine has kindly given us an update on their TSC journey. Parker has just turned 9 years of age and is in Year 4 at his local primary school.

When we last shared Parker’s journey with you, he had recently began having focal seizures. These were occurring while he was both awake and asleep. It took us nearly 12 months to get on top of the seizures, including combining 3 different medications to combat them. Whilst he is still on that combination of medication, Parker has been seizure free for approximately 4 years.

Parker has successfully navigated his first 4 years of primary school, managing to stay in a mainstream classroom with only a little bit of extra assistance. He still sees a Speech Pathologist and an Occupational Therapist regularly, and we have recently introduced a local Psychotherapist to assist Parker with his social and emotional challenges. Some behavioural observations have been made by his teachers and the paediatrician, so we are investigating a potential ODD diagnosis as well. We continue to see an array of specialists in Adelaide, albeit not as frequently as we did in the early years!

Parker’s confidence in himself is growing slowly but surely each year. After participating in the local MiniRoos soccer program in 2023, he joined a club team last year and participated in his first ever competitive sport environment in the Under 9’s competition. Turns out, Parker is instinctively an excellent defender!

At the conclusion of the soccer season, he decided to try basketball as well, so he joined the junior basketball association in an Under 10 side. After 4 rounds of games, he shot his first goal! Unfortunately, the season has ended abruptly, due to the malfunction of the centre’s air conditioning system, however, that has not dampened his spirits much because he’s already decided that AFL is next!

The most recent development in Parker’s abilities is that he has mastered riding his new dirt bike at our local Moto X track. It has taken all the weekends since Christmas to build up his self-confidence and memory recall, but he is absorbing everything we have been teaching him and doing all the right things without even realising it! We are so very proud of him.

It is so very true that living life with TSC is like a wave in the ocean – it most certainly has its ups and downs. The downs are stressful, challenging and emotionally conflicting. But when you’re on the top of a wave – like when we see Parker confidently riding his new dirt bike – boy does it fill you with a feeling of pure happiness and pride!