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Wrong diagnosis
So I went to the Docs today for the results of the X-Ray on my unreliable wrist. The one that Hubby said had fibrositis and I decided had tendonitis. I went in confident that the X-Ray would show nothing, G.P checked my date of birth with me, he's known me for 28 years, I thought he was just being thorough, then he read me the report. He got as far as osteoarthritis and that was enough. I hadn't entered that possibility into my Google search so my immediate reaction, not knowing much about said disease, was to picture a life of crippling pain. 'Luckily you're seeing the Rheumatologist again this month about your hip, I'll drop him a line telling him about the changes in your wrist, he may want to X-Ray your hip.' Weak smile from yours truly, prescription for anti-infammatories, and rush home to search the web.
I'm happier now. It's not as horrid as I thought. It might not get any worse. It should just stay in the one joint. I havn't got to give up gardening. My life can go on.
Off to Jacks house today with Eldest daughter, Amy and Midwife who looked after them. Only fly in the ointment is that Mother will be there. I have warned friend that she is likely to be cross-examined about labour etc, Mother was a Midwifery Tutor, but I have promised to protect her.
Today is eldest daughter's birthday.
There are little flutters of snow outside. Hardly anything really, but it was snowing when I went into hospital to have her so its a sentimental touch.
To celebrate she has gone spinning. I expect evryone knows what that is, I didn't. When she first started it. I had visions of my 'not known for her homemaker' skills sitting midst piles of fleeces teasing them into skiens. I expressed my surprise about her new hobby to her, when she had finished laughing, she explained that spinning is a type of manic cycling. Before she had Amy she would go every lunchtime, only giving up when her knees kept bumping into her ever enlarging bump, now she's back, two or three times a week. For her birthday partner is renovating her road bike and putting a child seat on the back, she's obviously hoping that Amy will love cycling.
Afternoon with daughters and Mother went much as expected. Mother upset Jack's Mummy, quite easy at the moment as her hormones are all over the place, but totally uncalled for. I shall dedicate one blog entry to my Mother and try to paint a picture of , what I consider, to be one of the worse examples of parenting types you could encounter. Actually, it's not just her parenting, its her entire personality. My BIL usually manages to sum her up well, mad. Lets just say that I have based my whole life around behaving in the opposite way to her, other than becoming a midwife, a psychologist would have a field day with her and her daughters relationships with her.
Yesterday Billy and Flo went in to be castrated. It took me half an hour to catch Bill and get him into his carrier, I couldn't use food to lure him as he was being starved, so it was a leather gloves exercise. They came home yesterday afternoon, they are obviously made of stern stuff, no lounging around, no walking gingerly for them, oh no, off they went, leaping here, there, and everywhere. Next set of jabs in two weeks and then they can go outside, must remember to put butter on their paws so they come home.
With Chip & Pin becoming compulsory on the 14th I thought I should do something about the fact that my card had no Pin, so I phoned the bank, explained the problem, and they promised to send me out a Pin. Thought no more about it, until today. The post arrived, I dutifully sorted it, handed Hubby his envelopes, and went to make a coffee. From the office I could hear shouts and expletives, I thought there must have been a bank statement or he'd been caught speeding, I wandered in to see Hubby sitting there holding a small card with the Welsh colours and symbol blazoned on it. The Bank had decided not to just send me a Pin, but send us both new Credit Cards. Hubby becomes a rampant nationalist when sport is involved, apparently tomorrow we play Wales in the 6 Nations Rugby, he was not a happy bunny. He is usually quite laid back, I have to prod him into action if complaints need to be made., not on this occassion though, 'I'm not carrying around a Welsh card for the next 2 years, what the hell's all this about? Bloody cheek. Whats wrong with an ordinary card, no pictures, no national symbols, just a f*****g card.' Next moment he's on the phone, shouting at recorded messages, pressing keys, and then there is obviously a human being, in person speaking to him. 'I don't want a Welsh Card, is there a choice. We're playing them at Rugby tomorrow?' On hold, I bet the call taker was laughing, I certainly was. A few minutes later he was speaking again, we are having new cards sent out to us, the person he was speaking to was a Scot, apparently he was sympathetic, they are playing the Italians tomorrow and he wouldn't want an Italian card. It would be good though to know why a Welsh decorated card, is it commemorative? It's not a Welsh bank, any ideas?
On the edge
I was late going to bed last night, 1.30am, and when I came to turn off my computer I did what I always do, log on to 20six and see if anyone I follow has blogged or if any comments I've made have been answered. As I sat here reading the comments I became aware of a tapping, I hadn't noticed it immediately cos it was very quiet, it wasn't continuous, sounded like when you knock on a window to attract attention. My computer is by a window, I looked but nothing/no one there. I admit it, I was feeling very slight spooked, not hugely but enough to make me uncomfortable. Then I realised where it was coming from, one of my speakers. Suddenly I had images of 'Poltergeist', when JulieAnn has been spirited into the TV, and I knew what the sound was, it was tapping on a screen. I immediatley exited everything and pressed shut down, and it took for ever. I felt really irrational, perhaps it wouldn't shut down, adrenaline was surging and I was really tempted to run out, but I was brave, and it did shut down. I am so pathetic that I ran up the stairs.
Back to everyday life where I'm not spooked by silly things. Having not missed a breech for 8 years, and then missing one two weeks ago, I missed another one last week. This one wasn't discovered until the woman had been labouring in hospital for 7 hours, and then they scanned her as they wern't sure how baby was lying. Apparently even then they had problems finding the head as it was tucked round the side, poor thing had to have a CS. It has made me very cautious now at clinic, I'm questioning every palpation, I wish I had an ultrasound built into my hands.
Jack's Daddy has had a really bad stomach for three weeks now. It flared up when daughter was having her threatened miscarriages so, I have to admit, he didn't get too much sympathy. He has had digestive probs for a couple of years now, has had loads of tests, and is a walking medicine receptacle, nothing ever found. This time though he has been in pain ++. Went to G.P x 2, given antibiotics, called out on-call doc, given anti-spasmodics, went to A&E, told he was constipated, (no examination, nothing) even though he had terrible diahorrea. Yesterday it came to a head, sweating, doubled over, passing blood, daughter took him back to A&E. They have kept him in, on a drip, not happy with blood results, X-Ray, or endoscopy, they are scanning him today. Daughter is being very positive, SIL is doped up to the eyeballs, I'm trying to limit my mental predictions. Very, very worrying. Hence me not going to bed until early hours. Hopefully should have more infomation this afternoon, Jack is coming to play with Nanny whilst Mummy and Daddy chat to the Docs.
Still no news about whats wrong with SIL. He's still in hospital, mixed ward, mainly geriatics as its a medical ward, 'cos there were no beds surgically. At least he has a bed. Sad state of affairs really but if I get started on the 'well-funded, locally accessible NHS' I will be on the subject forever.
We were woken this morning by tree surgeons asking us to move our cars off our drive. Next door has employed them to drastically cut-back their tree (the one thats roots invaded our drains 18 months ago, and bought down our elecricity cables during the summer). Of course the neighbours didn't feel that they should advise us that the tree bods would require access or that we would have to clear our drive. That shouldn't surprise me since when they decided to put up a fence our side of our hedge, 18 inches into our garden, they didn't feel we needed to know about that either or, that when they were having an extension built they would be erecting scaffolding on our land, outside our backdoor. Of course we moved our vehicles, and allowed access. Supposing we had been out, what would they have done? They've trespassed before so no problem, but how would they have moved our cars?
Relief
Good news. Diverticulitis, with a 4cm abcess. In until after the weekend on IV antibiotics. Worried it could have been so much worse, so happy it isn't.
Busy, busy
Jack and his Mummy are staying with us, and I'm shattered. Grandad is amusing him at the moment, I can hear them counting the stairs, its amazing how there are always 15. Good news, we heard 'peanut' yesterday, so daughter is less concerned about her scan on Tuesday. She's working a night tonight, and I'm at work tomorrow, so Grandad has heroically given up his golf tomorrow so she can sleep. I have a sneaking suspicion though that Jack and Grandad will end up at the 19th hole.
Son-in-law is still fluids only. They were going to operate, but have put that on hold until a repeat scan next week. He is stressing out big-time about not being able to work as he will only receive Statutory Sick Pay, and they have a mega-mortgage to support with no reserves. Daughter is picking up all the 'bank' work she can, but that has to fit in with my working. Who ever thinks that once the children are grown, and have fled the nest, you stop worrying and rushing around after them, think again.
Lesson learned
Working yesterday and covering my other team members work. One of their cases has a child protection order on the baby, limited details available to me, just says needs daily visits from us, twice weekly from the Social Worker, whilst they decide whether to keep the baby with her. I hate 'cold calling', when there are unusual circumstances, and I don't know the whole story, you have no idea what you might be about to confront. Ususlly, when we have any special cases we let ech other know everything that's going on, but this girl is staying with relatives so we had not had the usual run-up during pregnancy, just had her discharged to our care. Anyway, went round there, warned by student that the house was disgusting and that they had a large Alsation that jumps up at you. Knocked on the door and the barking commenced, door opened by the girls Mother and Alsation leaps for me. In my most authorative voice I said that I didn't do dogs, please could they shut it away. If looks could kill, I was a dead Midwife walking, but she did as I asked, turned away, walked to a door, shouted,' Come and deal with this', and left us standing in the hallway. The Girl appeared, and informed us that baby wasn't there, it had gone with it's Dads parents to their home in a different area. I asked if she had informed the Social Worker, negative response. Right, could I have their address and phone number, she didn't know it. Alarm bells started clanging. Then she told me that the previous night baby had not seemed well so they had called the on-call doctor, who had refused to come out, but had advised them to take baby to hospital, but they hadn't gone because she had no means of getting there.
I left the house, my brain had gone into overdrive. Oh s**t. This is like the cases you read about, 19 midwives visited, 3 Health Visitors, Social Services, and all the time some child is being abused, and they havn't noticed. I phoned up the on-call manger for her input, phone the duty Social Worker. I duly did this (passes the buck), told her all that had happened, and got on with my other visits. A couple of hours later the SW phones me, they had phoned the girl, she had said that baby would me coming back later that evening, and the SW asks me to visit then. I declined the offer. My thoughts are that this baby has a child protection order in place, therefore if there are any irregularities Social Services should investigate. However, student and I learned a valuable lesson, don't just read what the papers say, think about the mechanisms going on. We are very quick to judge and say how awful that everyone ignored warning signs, did nothing etc., we had all been visiting in this case, but there is very little we can do as community workers on a 24 hour basis. Hopefully baby is fine, equally though anything could have happened to it, and how would that have been reported in the papers?
SIL is out of hospital, feeling better than he did, but looking terrible. Terrible sickness overnight so daughter, who had been at work, was called home.
Amy has given up her bottom bouncing and is now crawling.
The cats have destroyed our new carpet and are now consigned to the utility room overnight. Second set of jabs on Thursday then outside.