Thread 49 - Covid GCSE Cohort - The nights are drawing in...

[OrangeSpicedBun]

Autumn 🍂 well and truly underway, has been chilly this week !

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results ( or life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, uni vs employment please don't within this thread.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue. We were previously on the secondary board and then further education, now we shall be here in 'Parents of Adult Children' gulp

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed). Experience is that everyone is welcomed wherever, whatever their child is doing we have some in work, gap years , apprenticeships etc too. Lots of contributors with different experiences and always sympathy and advice to be had.
Previous thread :

www.mumsnet.com/talk/parents_of_adult_children/4880640-thread-48-covid-gcse-cohort-summer-before-year-2-uni?latest=1

York :

Halls were £163 x 44 weeks = £7172
Private £145 x 52 weeks = £7540 + bills

Halls cheaper but did have to store her stuff or drive 300 miles to pick up!

Most private houses I know of are 52 week lets - and most start beginning of July....

When I was at uni in Guildford most lets were 52 weeks as well.

I can't remember my uni days tbh!

Lincoln can't be a total outlier!

Woah!!

Aberystwyth £78 per year cheaper for 12 month house let than 39 weeks in halls. All bills included in both.

Nottingham - what @crazycrofter said. It's difficult to compare as DS was catered. His house this year is £100 per week for 51 weeks plus bills. Probably works out a bit more expensive.

Both of mine chose cheaper halls with shared bathrooms.

For both of my dc's halls worked out cheaper. Halls for ds2 was £168 week. Private rent is £153 week with bills. But halls was 38 weeks, private is 52 weeks.

Dh is still testing positive for covid almost 2 weeks on. He finally had a face to face hospital app. booked as we'd only had phone consultations, then he got Covid and they wouldn't see him even though 11 days after his original positive test, fair enough, but still very annoying. So it was another telephone conversation again. He needs to have blood tests and more medication once he tests negative. No idea how long people test positive for. When I had it last year I tested day 13 and still 2 strong lines. We asked the consultant a life expectancy for DH. He said 3-6 years 😳 but they can't really tell. I've still no idea whether to tell the dc's. They knew first time round 9 years ago. But at the moment dh has no symptoms, we are going to do our best to not think about it for a while.

@icanbewhatiwant I am so sorry to hear that. I think you are right to wait a while so you can get your heads round it before you share the news - there will be lots of questions and you will need time to figure out what the answers may be, or accept that you don't have an answer to some.
Take care of yourself - it can be hard to do that when you are busy taking care of everyone else.

@icanbewhatiwant - am really sorry to hear about your DH. I told DS about me but that involved surgery etc while he was home so slightly different. If he hadn't been here or if there was no ongoing treatment at the time I think I would have kept it quiet. But it is so individual.

private accommodation in Leeds seems to be 51 weeks and is roughly the same cost as halls.

my son’s friends in Manchester say that private accommodation is cheaper than halls but is still a full year.

Thanks. I have had some people say tell them, others say don't. Ds1 is travelling, he's been in New Zealand almost a year and is flying to Australia in 2 weeks, he plans to stay there a year. He will be furious if something happened and he hadn't been told. But I don't want him to feel he needs to come home early. Then ds2 wants to do uni year 3 abroad. I think we should definitely tell him before he goes next summer, if he goes. I'm surprised ds3 hasn't heard is talking about the diagnosis. He's usually earwigging. If he's heard, he hasn't said. He's too young to remember when dh had his first treatment 10 years ago. He was only 4. Though treatment was fairly straightforward, dh worked on the farm throughout.

@icanbewhatiwant sorry to hear about that, but I think you should try to stay positive, treatments are improving every year, which may explain the wide range they have given. My dad died of lung cancer when I was 16 and we weren't told that he was given 3-6 months to live. I felt that was wrong, I would have behaved differently if I had known. But obviously a hard conversation to have. Maybe focus on them saying it may be 6 years.

Re accommodation:

St Andrews
When DS went there I thought the accom was really expensive, but then realised that halls don't vary much wherever you are. We paid
First year - £7k fully catered (19 meals/week), shared bathroom. Was nominally £4.5k accom, £2.5k food
Second year stayed in same hall
Third year private - Scotland is odd in that contracts don't have a length, the tenants can give notice when they choose. After trying to secure houses costing various amounts up to £800/month + bills, he ended up paying £525/month from September to May and bills were around £30/month because they had the govt energy subsidy and didn't turn the heating on much.

Sheffield
DS1's GF found that a year in private accom plus bills was a bit cheaper than halls. They do just under 1 year lets, so move out end of June, move in beginning of July. Was a bit annoying as she had to rent a storage unit for the little gap between.

Preston
DS was offered a room for £300/month plus bills, all very smart and newly renovated.

Norwich
DS in same halls as Seeline's DD. Rent is about £6.5k and that is pretty much the cheapest unless you go for Ziggurats, which was not really an option for DS as the beds are 6 ft and he is 6'2". Private accom - we are buying (need to do something with money from downsizing in laws), and in general the rate for a double room seems to be around £400/month plus bills, although I know of someone paying £160/week inc bills in a house where all the rooms are en suite.

Bangor
The girl I have helped since her mum died went for the most basic halls accommodation at £3,500 pa and she is hoping to stay there again next year.

@Monkey2001 sorry to hear about your dad. The thing with dh's is that the medication can work for years and years or not work at all. No one knows how long. So they can't answer. However, he also carries the brca2 gene meaning chemo won't work. So that doesn't help. If we haven't told the dc's and dh's treatment stops working then we will definitely tell them. There is a drug dh can have once the others are no longer working, it's a drug only for those with the gene. That should work for a year or. So there are other options. Hopefully it will be a few years before we have to think about the next drug.

@icanbewhatiwant that sounds relatively positive for a bad situation. I definitely think they need to know when he moves onto the final treatment. Keep us informed, hope the treatments don't have too many awful side effects.

@icanbewhatiwant That must have been very heard to hear. Will be hard to keep it a secret with one DS still at home. Agree with everything @Monkey2001 says about new treatments coming along. That's not false optimism it's fact. Hopefully the current medication will work for a long time first.

Thanks. The problem is, once cancer is in several lymph nodes around the body it's harder to treat. Seems it is in about 20 nodes in his tummy and in his chest too. Apparently they will have been there already 10 years ago when he had the first treatment. But weren't doing anything. The drugs will shrink them though 🤞 for many years.

Gosh ican, tough times and decisions ahead for you re the boys but, your DH seems to handling his condition really well which is such a plus; long may the meds work for him.

Different country I know Piggy and I don’t have rental data but we pay £9,200 for 38 weeks in private halls. Expensive but only €2k tuition fees per annum as the Irish Govt heavily subsidises home/UK/EU students which helps to offset zero access to Student Finance.

Nottingham
Private more expensive, around £150pw including bills. He could definitely have found cheaper with a smaller group (there are 8 of them)
Choice of 50 or 52 week let

@icanbewhatiwant Sorry to hear about your DH's prognosis - it must have been very difficult to hear that. I hope the treatment works for a lot longer, there are so many stories of fantastic new options all the time.

Sorry to hear that @icanbewhatiwant. Take care of yourself too!

Just bought ds1 home from Canary Wharf. I'm in bed having a rest.

DS home now for Christmas. Not sure how long for as he has a longer contract for the house. He was v tired! No exams until after Easter so hopefully a reasonably restful Christmas for him

@icanbewhatiwant I'm sorry to hear that. Fingers firmly crossed that treatments continues to develop.

DD is wrapping up projects for the term. One of them was to produce a mock album cover, and the mask in this is a real physical thing rather than photoshop or drawing.

So….this weekend has been rather mad for Ds. Four cities in two days.

he was a bit down last week. Finding it hard to get motivated. Can’t see the point of the academics. Hates practising scales. Finding it frustrating that the show he is conducting is with tracks not a live band.

but he went down to London on Thursday (conservatoire gave him the time off) to play in a concert. Got last min tickets for Elf Thursday night and turned up to the rehearsal Friday.

It turned out that every other player had west end, national tour or similar credits including playing with some famous pop stars. He was so motivated to be playing alongside them. (As a keys player his advantage was in getting the job that most were tied up with panto contracts).

He got the train back Saturday morning and when he was 15 mins from home got a text asking if he could be in a certain city in an hours time. To get a taxi and they would pay.

you may remember he was gutted to have to turn down a tour with a film music orchestra due to being contracted to the musical theatre show in a few weeks. Turned out they desperately needed someone to cover a rehearsal. So he went and sight-read the synth part to a well known film score.

he still can’t do the shows but he was buzzing (& terrified). Then a taxi back to play a gig with a covers band. Due to the snow he finally got home at 1.40am and had to catch a train back to conservatoire this morning (slow train due to strikes) for a rehearsal this afternoon.

I fully expect him to crash tomorrow but luckily his driving lesson has been cancelled & his lecture is online.

That’s all so rock and roll Comefromaway, no wonder he was buzzing. What a lovely turnaround of events for him!

The scales made me smile. DD hated them too, but such a necessary evil and the ability to sight read really well clearly stands musicians in good stead.

His piano lessons have been focused on his upcoming technical assesment which he’s not been enjoying (he failed last year but it’s only 25% of the module so he made up the marks on his performance.

I'm sorry to read the news about your DH, icanbewhatiwant.
Hopefully, the 3-6 years is a conservative estimate and, as others have said, there will have been advancements in drugs by then.
I can only imagine how stressful the uncertainty is, and how difficult it is to know what/how much to tell your dc. I hope you can find a way of managing that brings you some kind of peace.

I'm sorry to hear about your DH @icanbewhatiwant what an incredibly hard and stressful situation for you all.

@PhotoDad that album cover has real 70s vibes to it.

@Comefromaway that sounds like an amazing couple of days for your DS!

I went on a rescue mission for DS1 on Saturday night. He's been very poorly for at least ten days, got fobbed off by the GP beginning of the week when he went with a throat and ear infection and told to take paracetamol. Nothing has been working to relieve the pain. He called at 8pm asking if we could come and get him. So I jumped in the car and did a 4.5 hour round trip in the dark and fog to get him. He is very unwell, his throat is so sore he's coughing blood and every time he blows his nose the tissue is full of blood. Still has terrible ear pain and can hardly speak. 🙁