Tuesday’s Fostering Blog
I didn’t sleep a wink over night. When I arrived at the hospital in the morning I didn’t know what I was going to arrive to. I realised that although Charlie had been on morphine for most of the night, he too had also had very little sleep. Its amazing when you are at the mercy of the National Health Service you have to exercise much patience. From my experience with the NHS with Alice, I could see that Charlie was having an altogether different experience. I was reminded of Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities which opens by saying “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” I was thinking “it was the best of care, it was the worst of care…”
The hours you wait around in hospital feel like days. When you know you’re waiting for a diagnosis but you won’t get that diagnosis until you have had a scan – it is very frustrating. Finally at 11:30am Charlie was taken down for his CT scan. He was taken by a porter in a hospital wheelchair. I found it hard to keep up with the porter as he strode along the corridors reminiscent of the BFG covering a huge amount of ground in seconds. When commenting on his speed he said that he covers an average of 20 miles across the hospital per day
After a short wait in the waiting room Charlie was taken through for his scan and we were soon back on our way to the ward. It was then back to the waiting game until the doctor was able to review the scan and make a diagnosis. We could not have been more relieved to hear that Charlie did not have appendicitis, but in fact he had kidney stones. How these were going to be treated was up to the urology consultant who would review this scan later in the afternoon.
It was not long until I had to leave Charlie again so that I could go home and pick the children up from school. Meanwhile Charlie sat patiently waiting for the doctor to look at his scan. Meanwhile, when the girls arrived home from school Lauren and Annie were so relieved that Charlie’s diagnosis was nothing more serious. Alice was terribly upset, because he was still in hospital, she might miss her swimming lesson. This was a moot point as her bowels hadn’t opened so she wouldn’t be going anyway!
Charlie continued to wait patiently, but there was no sign of a doctor all afternoon. After teatime, I rang the hospital directly to ask what the plan of action for Charlie was. I needed to arrange child care if he was going to be coming home tonight. The nurse in charge could not have been less helpful if she had tried.
She did not answer any of my questions instead she went and fetched Charlie to the nurses station to speak with me! He was obviously bemused as to why I had called him over when I could have called him on his mobile. Eventually after being passed back to the nurse she indicated that the doctor would be doing his rounds soon. It was clear that Charlie would need another night in hospital. The consultant still needed to make a decision as to whether surgery was needed or whether the stones could be passed naturally. It became clear that as his pain was still not under control it would be at least another day before he would be discharged.
A Less Ordinary Family Foster Carers Blog
