Adoption approval for vasculitis sufferers?

[Debmac]

Has anyone out there suffering from vasculitis had experience of trying to adopt children. We are in scotland and my husband has cutaneous vasculitis- (we believe he has Cutaneous polyarteritis nodosa (PAN) although we have not been told which form of cutaneous vasculitis he has).His kidneys function at 44% and he suffers leg ulcers from time to time and infertility all due to his vasculitis. We are going through the adoption process and he has his medical next week by our GP. The documentaton from this is then forwarded to the 'adoption doctor' who will approve reject or ask for further investigations. We have no idea what to expect regarding how they will respond to his vasculitis. They are so strict and wont approve smokers or people who are a certain amount overweight. We are just wondering if anyone else has gone through it and how it worked out for them. We would appreciate hearing any stories good or bad.

[John_Mills Volunteer]

We have held back answering this question, just to see if anyone has been through the adoption process... as we do know a couple who tried to adopt and went through all the adoption process. They were refused because one had vasculitis and was quite severley disabled with the Vasculitis, but they also had other problems which also contributed to the refusal, not just the vasculitis.

All local councils say "You will only be unsuitable to adopt if you have a serious illness that will limit your ability to look after a child" We are not sure if this just means a single person wanting to adopt.

The odds are they will not have heard of vasculitis and will probably rely on your GP's medical description. Does your GP have a full understanding of Vasculitis and what medication your husband is taking?? We suggest you talk everything through with your GP before or at the medical.

We wish you the best of luck and if we can help in anyway let us know..

Susan and John

[Debmac]

Many thanks for your reply. We really appreciate you taking time to share you knowledge/experience.

My husband works full time for the NHS ( in mental health) and lives a full active life (in fact he's out doing DIY on our roof at the moment!). He does experience tiredness from time to time but nothing that I imagine would limit his ability to look after children. We were forced to move to a new Dr's surgery when we moved house 1 1/2 years ago and he has never seen any GP's since we joined the practice so I don't expect his GP will be knowledgeable on vasculitis. He only takes candersartan for his high blood pressure and to protect his kidneys. The only other health professional he see's is a urologist every 6 months (they don't seem very knowledgeable on vasculitis either). Since we first found out about his renal problems 5 years ago his kidney function has stayed the same until 6 months ago when it dropped 5% then went up again 1% (although we only found out about the drop a few weeks ago!). Hopefully the recent drop wont jeopardise things.

I had my adoption medical last week and got the impression that the doctor was very much on my side and and that she didn't want to give the social services any unnecessary or irrelevant info that would make things more difficult. My husband will see a different doctor. Hopefully this doctor will have the same approach and hopefully my husbands relatively good health will all be in our favour.

Thanks again for your advice and also your offer of help.