Fostering Blog – Alice Says
Thursday
It has not been a great start to the day. Firstly for some unknown reason we all overslept, Annie rushed into the bathroom to have a shower, Charlie then rushed downstairs to the loo to vomit as he had woken up with a migraine and Annie then went to our other loo to vomit – I suspect she has tonsillitis. Picking up on all of this, Alice says that she doesn’t want to go to school and refused to get up. I know that she is completely fine, she just hates it when anyone else gets any attention. I haven’t got the time or the energy today to play games with her, so I simply state that she will be going to school. If she chooses not to have breakfast then she will be hungry and if she chooses not to get up and dressed then she will go to school in her pyjamas. But she will be going to school, even if I have to carry her from her bed down to her wheelchair. Then I walked away, and didn’t look back.
There are many days when negotiating is a better option and getting her to choose to do the right thing is best – even if that is giving her a closed option choice. Today, I have to look after Charlie (although this will be limited as he will probably spend the rest of the day in bed) and Lauren who will need a doctor’s appointment. Gone are the days of sitting in a telephone queue at 7.59am, hoping and praying to get through, now I can log into the surgery’s website and as long as I am logged in at exactly 8am when the appointments are released for the day – then usually you can get an appointment, otherwise it will be a call to the surgery and getting the receptionist to agree to arranging a call back from a doctor to be triaged for an appointment. Although this can be very frustrating when you can’t get an appointment, I do have to remind myself what an amazing service the NHS is, and it’s shortcomings are due to many factors – probably lack of funding is a top one.
Fortunately, my gamble paid off and Alice was soon shouting down that she was ready for breakfast. Annie was a superstar and helped Alice with breakfast and helping her get into her school uniform, all this before she got herself ready and out of the door by 8am. I was fortunate able to make a doctors appointment for 10am which meant I could do the school run with Alice, and get back in good time to get Lauren to the appointment. As I suspected it was a nasty case of tonsillitis.
We were soon on our way with a prescription for antibiotics and a throat spray. I dropped Lauren back home before taking the prescription to the pharmacist. While I waited for it to be dispensed, I went next door to the supermarket to get all the “poorly” food Alice would need while she recovers – chocolate mousse, smarties, lollipops and mango juice – all the important stuff!! Just hoping now the antibiotics will do their job and she will soon be on the mend.
A Less Ordinary Fostering Family Blog.
