In 2011 I sent you an email about my concerns and had to unfortunately cancel our first appointment due to financial reasons.
A few weeks later I rescheduled and met you, the person who would guide me and walk beside me for much longer than I ever expected. What started out as an assessment, later blossomed into a true parent-professional partnership.
Today, you are one of the first people I contact when I need to talk to someone who has the insight to understand my frustrations and the objectivity that is not clouded by emotion.
Through the years you have become my sounding board, mentor, colleague and friend.
I don’t think you realize the significant role that you play in our lives. You’ve helped us overcome adversity and taught us that hard work and commitment will pave the path to successful intervention and development. With you I learn all the time!
Carol Mestern, no words will ever do justice to the gratitude I have for you. Without you I’d be a shadow of the parent I am today. You personify family centred intervention and support. I have immense gratitude for the difference that you are in our world.
Kai and Faith are complete opposites and I’ve been in absolute awe of your ability to optimize and adapt the sessions based on each child’s unique challenges and behaviour.
The stars must have been aligned the day you replied to my email inquiry so many years ago!! Because a few months later Kai was diagnosed with hearing loss, and as a qualified audiologist who worked at a school for the deaf, you were the perfect fit! Something I’ve only come to appreciate and understand a few years later.
I’ve watched Kai’s speech, language and auditory skills develop through the years, and I always leave the therapy session empowered!
More recently you’ve embraced my very busy niece, and it is here where I’ve come to appreciate you even more. Your skills, patience and ability to extract the best from Faith has left me flabbergasted! She is now talking in sentences that we can understand. She can follow basic instructions and has developed a love for books and ‘workschool’, a term she uses when Kai is doing his homework, “Ghevon, I do my workschool now?”
Carol, thank you for helping me be the best parent (and aunt) that I can be. Know that Kai and Faith loves you dearly and these days I hear things like “it’s my Carol” when they have a bit of a squabble while reading your books!
In my ‘professional’ PARENT opinion, you are the BEST Speech and Language Therapist, and I don’t know what I’d do without you! Nkosi, Dankie, Thank you.
