Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday

My Week in Pictures

Happy Valentines Day

If I were to describe myself, I probably wouldn't use the word romantic, however I seem to have been infected by some weird kind of Valentines bug!! I'm blaming it on the fact that although I have received Valentine cards and presents before I've never really done the whole Valentine thing of meals and being romantic. 

This year I am finally going to be that girl. you know....the one you look at and think get a grip woman!!! I have a man who loves me and I'm going to make the most of it and be a great, soppy romantic tart: 

When I was young I remember my Mum had this cushion that said 'Love is.......holding hands as you drop off to sleep together'. I don't know why I keep thinking about that this week but for me........

 Love is......'The Man' sitting in the hospital with me and holding Chick's hand and stroking her hair for hours on end whilst she was ill.

Love is......Coming home from work to find that he's put together my new table and chairs instead of having a lie-in.

Love is......The Man making me laugh every single day.

 

Love is......him meeting my lovely but crazy family and pretending not to be bothered by how extensive the family is.

Love is......the fact that he makes me a very happy girl.


Happy Valentines Day!

Silent Sunday

The reason for my blogging silence....

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how January was kicking my arse for a variety of reasons and in true Brooks style obviously life got much worse!!! As a summary the end of January, following on from my previous post, went a bit like this:

- On Friday Chick threw up so much I called NHS direct for advice and they said they weren't sure what it was but if she was still ill when she woke up to speak to the emergency Doctor.

- By Saturday she was so ill that not only did we speak to the emergency doc but we also visited the walk in centre and the hospital who thought it was Appendicitis.

- We sat at the hospital for (many, many) hours. Her Dad managed 45 minutes, 'The Man' was present for most of the weekend and cuddled her, stroked her hair, let me get food/pee/moan/cry/sleep, chivvied the nurses along and actually gave a f**k.

- The beds for parents in hospitals suck hairy donkey balls and are at least 2" too small for me.....not just 'cos I have a mahoosive arse!!! How on earth Dad's sleep on them long term I have no idea. I haven't been able to stand up straight since!!

- The NHS at the weekend don't seem to care about their patients and I spent a WHOLE lot of time throwing my toys out of the pram and bugging the nurses to actually DO something for my girl! DO NOT upset  a Mama Bear! Also children's wards are just like tv programmes/a soap opera!

- I'm sure this is a generalisation but our nurses spent 80% of their time doing nothing/passing the buck to the doctors/eating food that my daughter and I couldn't touch/gossiping about nothing! At least in HR departments we have the good grace to appear fucking busy and if someone approached us that was obviously upset we wouldn't palm them off with 'you must wait for the HR Manager, we know nothing'. Training is a fucking marvellous tool!

- The NHS should maybe also think about the people/family that are sitting there 24/7 with the patients. Now I'm not suggesting for a second that they actually pay/provide for food but on Saturday I had a chocolate bar and a diet coke to last me from lunchtime until my family came on Sunday. When you are a single parent how the f**k do you manage when you can't leave your child? I know that I'm very lucky to now have 'the man' but actually there were only vending machines that had food, we didn't have much change between us and neither of us wanted to leave the hospital to get any!

- When we left the hospital (as we'd forced the issue) we didn't have any advice apart from to see the Doc in 48 hours, so when Chick was ill again by Tuesday we were turned away from the Doctor because 'everyone was out at lunch' and the walk in centre because 'although she's in pain, she doesn't need immediate medical assistance'. Right...............so my 9 year old is suffering and in pain, which you can SEE but it it isn't urgent! WTF???

- We went back to the Doctor (once they'd finished eating!!) and they don't have a clue what's wrong with her! We were supposed to get all the test results from the hospital, some of which weren't there. I asked what I should do with Chick to make her comfortable and the advice was to 'give her calpol/advil and wait until she was better'! Marvellous so I'll take UNPAID leave from work indefinitely, not pay any bills or rent and wait for my girl to miraculously recover!

The end of the saga?? The NHS can kiss my ass and I'm probably going to have to go back to working full time AND extra hours to pay for private healthcare for my family. I've been a staunch advocate of the NHS for many years, my Auntie works for them and MY taxes pay for the service but I cannot be without answers. I wouldn't mind if they couldn't tell me what was wrong but they didn't even seem to actually care or seem to want to be TRYING to find a solution! Even now two weeks later we still have no answers.......

Silent Sunday