What a week that was.

Saturday the planned operation for Daughter 1 was cancelled. Not postponed, cancelled. Total chaos. Miscommunication and despair all round.

Sunday Daughter 1 admitted to hospital for pain unknown source.

Monday.

Grandchild 3 (GC3) was ill and off school so my au pair services in play. Don’t tell anyone …we actually had a lovely day playing trains and snuggled up watching Thomas the Tank Engine.

Tuesday same.

Wednesday. …plumber called…leaking boiler in Cornwall. Meanwhile I was on a call about leaky bladders research online…I am sure I was saying plumber not bladder and vice versa in all the wrong places. Phone appointment too from rheumatologist … only an hour later than arranged. Patients just spend all day sitting by their phone just in case it rings. NO WE DO NOT. He had basically nothing to say. All his promises of help amounted to…nothing. £500 SHIT.

Then I was late to catch train.

I had hoped to accept Jerome’s suggested plan of bladder action. That is to take a 48 hour stint in hospital with iv and tlc. By the time I had established the cost via encrypted stupid 15 -attachments -letters on my email ( found in spam) I had simply given up. By some miraculous quirk of fate…although I wonder if Jerome perhaps had waved his magic…I received a call from the Infectious Diseases Clinic the grim place off Tottenham Court Road. It is here that the Outpatients team…OPAT, I still cannot remember what that stands for, operate. They had booked me into the Tower, for a mid-line procedure. The very awesome team there covered me in drapes and scanned the veins, inserted the midline and patched it all up. All the while chattering about the Malacanan Palace in Manila. A tenuous link which they have never forgotten. One of my primary school friends was indeed a Marcos. All I really remember is the body guards who bought the class fish and chips on a miserable Sussex weekend, school camping expedition. The vascular access team have never forgotten the stories and we always chatter and laugh over forgotten memories and current situation out there.

Then to OPAT , walking passed many homeless tents, into the building, passed the bored security guard, passed the ‘Freedom’ kiosk for the ground floor patients seeking needing help for STD and upstairs to the Tropical Diseases Clinic. For it is here amongst the dengy fever, malaria and worse, patients, lives the OPAT team. I go here to be observed as to how and if I can self medicate with iv at home. Drawing up syringes full of antibiotics and self injecting them not forgetting to check for leaks and bubbles.Having passed the test I was issued with all the necessary and duly dispatched home.

IV NO TLC….

Thursday and Friday au pair days again with GC3. More trains !

then onto care of the elderly ( my parents) in the afternoon. Friday evening…couldn’t stay awake to charge the implants…comatose.

Breaking news . Daughter 1 has new date for operation. Please please can they keep to that. The effect on the patient, the families, the work – place, school, children….everything needs careful planning. Communicate. Please. Collaborate. Please.