Poor old Poorly Natty
Nat has come down with a cold, she doesn’t do ill very well, she started with the cold symptoms yesterday evening towards bed time,snuffling and coughing nicely, a bit of a high temperature but the main problem was that she was feeling rather distressed with a pain in the roof of her mouth we put her down to sleep as usual and she did actually settle pretty well considering, with the aid of calpol and having increased her normal Becatide Inhaler to aid with chest tightness.
Anyhow, she woke at about 4am really distressed and upset, we tried settling her back after giving her some more calpol and her Ventolin, her chest was tight, but she was still complaining of a sore throat.
Anyhow, she wasn’t going to settle on her own so we allowed her to come into our bed, as a treat, but she didn’t settle there very well, I managed to doze a little, but Joy eventually took Nat into the living room to see if she would settle, she did sleep in ‘my’ chair, I think that it was more in order to allow me the chance to sleep, Joy tends to be concerned to ensure I get sleep because it has quite a dramatic impact on my depression if I don’t.
Anyhow, Apparently Steven also had a fit at 6.45 this morning, as you can guess by the use of the word apparently, I wasn’t awake to know anything about it, so Joy has really not had a good nights sleep, although I feel like I have had a worse night than I really have had.
So, this morning Nat is still complaining of the pain in her mouth, her cold symptoms don’t seem as bad and she doesn’t have a temperature now either, but her mouth is really causing her problems, now ordinarily I would have carted her off to the Medical Drop in Centre at Queens Drive this morning but as she has cold symptoms and with the general paranoia around Swine Flu I decided we best call the out of hours service, I am pretty certain that she doesn’t have severe enough symptoms to be considered swine flu but just think bringing her into a waiting room without having first spoken to the medical people would result in them telling us off.
OK so I call, as usual they have to get a nurse to call us back, which takes nearly an hour, she says that she is told Nat has flu like symptoms! i tell her no that’s not the issue, so go through the symptoms and problems, explaining that I had called rather than brought her down to the drop in because of the cold symptoms, she talks through and asks various questions, then concludes that its swine flu because of the high temperature and the sore throat! I say, no she doesn’t have a high temperature, yes she feels a bit warm but not a high temperature, and she doesn’t have a sore throat its the roof of her mouth that’s the problem! so she says she will get a Dr to ring back.
The Dr rings back and says she understands that we are concerned with Nat having swine flu! so I explain once again that I don’t think she does have swine flu but she has a cold which is why I was calling rather than bringing her into the drop in service, but the concern wasn’t actually the cold but the pain in her mouth, so eventually she says OK you will have to bring her down to the Bed-doc service at 1pm for an assessment, although she will have to wear a mask whilst in the waiting room just in case its swine flu! all I can say is, good luck with the idea of getting her to keep a face mask on!
One of the facts that we have got used to is that, being the parents of 2 children with learning difficulties, means that we are much heavier users of the medical services, sometimes, like today, simply because our kids are not as able as other kids to tell us exactly what’s going on and what the pain is so we have to go on the over cautions side and get them checked over more regularly just in case! Generally we find the Drs & Nurses that we see as a result of this veyr udnerstanding and sympathetic of our problems and issues as well as being very good with the kids, although not always, so I am hoping for a good experience later when I get Nat off to see the Dr.
Aside from making you feel sorry for us for the lack of sleep and for Nat because she is feeling rough, the point is, why do the medical professionals want to diagnose Swineflu at every turn? are they being paid by the government to inflate the swineflu figures to make it seem a bigger issue than it is? perhaps to take the pressure off the governments own failures and weaknesses? Or am I just a cynic?
Having said all that, whilst writing this blog post Joy has started complaining she is feeling really hot, so just hoping its not swine flu after all.
A&E on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, not my venue of choice!
I might as well just launch straight in with my first blog post and comment on life!
OK so last night, well 2.30 this morning Steven had a pretty bad seizure, if it goes on over 5 minutes we have to sedate him with a medication called Bucal Midazolam, which we had to do on this occasions, the seizure still did not stop and after a further 5+ minutes we had to call for an ambulance.
Rather unusually we had quite a wait for the ambulance, it took 20 minutes from calling them to their arrival.
Anyhow, he had stopped fitting by the time the ambulance arrived, this is not unusual at all as it happens all the time, often the paramedics still want to take him in but on this occasion they were happy with us keeping him at home as we felt this was the best, he was now stable and there seemed no problem.
Steven did have a further 2 seizures in the night but these were both self limiting!
Anyhow, back to the paramedics, whilst they were with us they said that whilst they were on their way to us they got a message to say we had told the control that he had stopped fitting so it was being downgraded from a red call to a green call (the control usually keep us on the phone until the paramedics arrive these days) the green call means that they had up to 2 hours to attend, this had caused an argument between them and control as they were saying it was unfair on us as parents to be messed about like that, what would they do if it was their own child? I think the general thing was that control wanted to re-route them to another call to some drunks in the town centre.
Now I have no problems with people having a good time and going out clubbing etc but should a drunk party goer be given priority over a child who is having a seizure?
Usually if you go down to A&E; on a Friday or Saturday night the place is full and overflowing of people who are there simply because they have had too much to drink, it may not be the drink that has directly lead to them being there but it certainly contributed in one way or another, I know because we have been there, sitting around at A&E; waiting for Steven to be treated whilst the staff are busy patching up the drunks and partygoers!
On the whole the staff at A&E; do a fantastic job and I have nothing but the highest admiration for them and the work they do, I definitely could not do their job, and that’s without the abuse and aggressive behaviour they have to put up with.
I am aware in writing this that I have to be very careful how far I push it as people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, those of you closest to me know what I am talking about but the question then is:
Where should the priorities lie at A&E;, how should they decided who gets treated and in what order?
Should they tolerate drunken behaviour from patients/friends? Because some of the behaviour at times is appalling.
Do the staff have a right to refuse treatment?
Should people have to pay for treatment in some circumstances? If so, who decides on the criteria for charging and what circumstances should impose a charge?







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