Kat Dickens waves to 7-year-old daughter Mya who is ready to go back to school after a long time off. Photo / Tania Whyte
Kat Dickens waves to 7-year-old daughter Mya who is ready to go back to school after a long time off. Photo / Tania Whyte
Thousands of Northland students will start heading back to school from Tuesday as holidays come to end. The Northern Advocate will be running three stories on the return as part of our back to school package. Here is our first story
Whangārei schoolgirl Mya Dickens is looking forward to returning to school next week so she can finally see her friends again.
Unlike her Kamo Primary School peers, who will be heading back after just a few months off for the holidays, Mya hasn't been to school regularly since the beginning of term 4.
The 7-year-old was last year diagnosed with a Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM), which is a web of abnormal blood vessels in her left cheek.
It caused the left side of her face to swell to the size of a tennis ball; and as a result all her teeth - but one - fell out, and the top left part of her jawbone dissolved.
In November last year Mya underwent life-changing surgery to remove the entangled blood vessels.
Mya's mum Kat Dickens said it meant her daughter was only able to attend school for about a month for all of term 4.
"We had heaps of appointments, having to go all the way down to Auckland, having little minor surgeries and back when her big surgery was going on too."
Dickens said Mya missed school a little, but missed her friends more.
"Her classmates knew everything that was going on, and they were so lovely. They ended up moving her whole entire class into the same room again this year. So that's going to be a lot more easier for her to go in knowing all her friends from last year are going to be in the same class again."
Kat Dickens and Mya in November last year. Photo / Tania Whyte
Dickens said she is also excited for Mya to have a bit of normality back.
"It'll be good to get some kind of routine back. One downfall with her not being at school is that I feel like it's had a bit of an extra impact on her learning. She was pretty good and everything, and when it was small surgeries I'd do school work with her at home.
"But since this big one hit her, she wasn't there 100 per cent and I thought I'm not going to put on top when you're trying to heal."
Dickens said there are still some surgeries to come, but for now Mya was just excited to go back to playing on the park with her friends.
