Fostering Alice Blog
Wednesday.
Today we went to visit the Urodynamic team at the Children’s Hospital. This is the department that looks after the bladder and bowels. After a recent bout of Urinary tract infections, the urodynamic team have asked me to start another course of bladder wash outs- this sounds far more scary than it is! I learnt to do this a couple of years ago when she was getting a lot of infections. The nurse said that this should finally get on top of the infection, and it soon comes back to me how the procedure is so straightforward. The only tricky part for me is remembering to do it once a day for 10 days and then three times a week for a month! I get a strange sense of de ja vu.
The good memory I have is that it was pretty successful last time and we have gone almost two years without any problems. So I will be ensure I am attentive in getting it done on the right days during the course of treatment.
We soon left the hospital with two huge carrier bags of medicine, syringes, catheters and a sharps bin – it looks like we’ve been on a shopping spree! (if only!!) It is incredible to think of all the skills you learn as a foster carer – particularly these unexpected ones!! I had no idea when we started fostering all the skills I would learn – let alone the new vocabulary I now have!!
Alice had been on pretty good behaviour at the hospital this morning – to be honest I am always grateful for small mercies – you never know what mood she is going to be in and we have had made appointments that have not gone well and have caused great stress due to her behaviour.
We are soon on our way back to school. It then dawned on her that she had missed break. I preempted this with leaning back and offering her a snack to eat in the car on the way back. I had been keeping it my bag – just in case! Although I don’t really advocate using food as a way of bribing her to behave – there are a few occasions when I do resort to it – today is one – I need to concentrate while I get out of the city centre, so keeping Alice from having a meltdown is a priority!!
A Less Ordinary Fostering Family Blog.
