STAYING cool could mean the difference between a good day at school and being rushed to hospital for little Tamworth boy Kaiden Mood.
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That’s why, as summer starts to sizzle, getting airconditioning in his Duri Public School classroom was so urgent – and why locals have pitched in to make it happen.
The cool will help the seven-year-old avoid complications from hydrocephalus, a condition that causes fluid to accumulate on his brain and means he overheats easily.
Mum Amy said she hoped it would be another positive step for Kaiden, who’s been surging ahead in recent months in his education, with mostly stable health and in a small school that suits his temperament.
“They’re absolutely amazing out there with dealing with Kaiden and his condition.”
Ms Mood said Kaiden was “missing some of the mechanical parts” that allowed the brain to distribute excess cerebrospinal fluid throughout the body.
He has a shunt to help drain it into his stomach, which has required four brain surgeries – the first when he was just 13 months old.
“Kaiden can’t sweat so he dehydrates really quickly,” she said.
“Sitting in a classroom in Tamworth heat, it gets really hot inside and Kaiden’s not functioning properly.
“I’ve already had to go out several times so far and pick him up just because he’s too hot, and we’ve had several hospital trips already.
“One was from school where they called me about four weeks ago, and he wasn’t responsive at all: he couldn’t talk, he was all confused and they said he was looking through them like they weren’t there.”
Ms Mood said her mother, Jane, had organised the project and her father, Allan, had asked for the help of some contacts from his half-century in the airconditioning industry.
He’s donating the materials; Lea Burrow, the owner of Garlick’s Heating and Cooling, where Mr Mood once worked, sourced a donated airconditioning unit; and Mr Mood and his former electrician, David Bennett, will install it.
They aim to have it in on Saturday, so it’s ready to go in the new school year.
Principal Craig McDonald said Kaiden and his sister Sieshia were “beautiful kids” and it was “wonderful to have” the airconditioning going in.
“We have evaporative, but you know what that’s like when it gets too hot and gets to the stage where it can’t cope,” he said.
The school could have applied to the education department but Mr McDonald said it was “very quick to do it this away and they [the Moods, donors and volunteers] wanted to do it, so we got the OK to go ahead”.
“The rest of the kids are going to benefit from it as well; we have days they can’t run around because we can’t cool them down once they get hot,” he said.
“It’s going to be fantastic to have that in the computer room – the cool air will start there and filter out into the other classrooms.”
Ms Mood said Kaiden started at the 35-student school at the end of June after attending a much larger Tamworth school where he wasn’t coping with the size.
In his free time, she said, he loved going hunting and doing farm work with his Uncle Pete.