Saturday +58 and Sunday +59

Saturday +58 and Sunday +59
Well things got progressively worse last night (not with William), I can’t believe that I was worried about a chair!!!! The ‘acting’ plain clothed sister came round with a letter saying that we are no longer allowed to eat or drink in the corridor amongst other things. They suggest that you ask the nurses to listen out for your child (there are speaker phone type things) and that they will come and get you if you are on a pre arranged break. I simply don’t believe that this is feasible especially as the busiest time on the ward is between 6 and 8pm and that’s when most people want to eat. I am not happy to be away from William when his has lines running to his Hickman line which has a repair on each side. Only the other day a nurse told me about how they had found a child covered in blood where he had twisted himself in his lines so much in his sleep that he had damaged his hickman line. That is SO dangerous and happened within the last few weeks to a child not much older than William who was being supervised by the nurses overnight. The older children can be more easily left because they can ring the bells for assistance and can learn and understand why they are not to pull at their lines but you still can’t guarantee how long it will take to a nurse to turn up to see if they are alright. The situation is highly unsatisfactory and now means that we have to eat in shifts away from the ward in a grotty room with 2 small dirty, soggy sofas and no windows. There could be up to 40 people eating in that space if each room just had 2 of their 3 carers on the ward. Anyway in the wee small hours of Saturday night I woke up and wrote down our concerns regarding this and some other issues in a letter which I am getting Mum to print off at home and will give it to them on Tuesday. I felt a bit better and constructive after writing it having felt utterly miserable and powerless. I appreciate that they are trying to protect the children from infection and some of the changes around the place are really positive and overdue but it is so hard to relax and maintain relationships here that it just feels that they are taking even more away from us and I want them to at least appreciate what the changes will mean to families. Rob and I did had a nice Saturday evening watching a film on the laptop and William slept soundly through most of it. I was a sad and grumpy bear on Sunday, not cheered by eating alone and spending a not inconsiderable time sat next to a tumble dryer doing the laundry (the change in Rob’s visiting patterns means that I can no longer take advantage of Granma Curtis’ superb laundry service, boo). We cheered ourselves considerably in the evening with secret consumption of chocolate in the room (!!) and watching my extravagantly purchased box set of Cold Feet. It made Rob laugh so hard that he woke William up!!!