The start of the week was busy with a visit to the Wheelchair clinic to pick up Laura's new SN buggy. It's the same model just the next size although they have provided a better harness and seat. We had asked for a purple one (OK I had asked for purple, Laura can't care less!!!) but they gave us a blue one again. At least Laura will know it is hers and won't get confused with a new colour. We used it in the new car on Monday and she seemed really happy with her good view out the front window! She was also happy to be back at school when we dropped her back, so that is good to see.
On Tuesday Mick and I went up to the EMAS HQ in Nottingham. This was following our complaint about ambulance response times. We had complained back in 2003 and following that EMAS had put a "flag" on our address which we had been led to believe would ensure a faster response by the ambulances but this has not happened except on rare occasions.
Anyway it turns out the flag just says "child prone to fits - allergic to diazepam" which is insufficient and doesn't flag up the need for a proper ambulance not just a paramedic car. The manager explained the system in detail and showed us what happened at the time of the recent incident and why there was a delay. They did fail their 8 minute response time even with the paramedic (10 minutes) and the ambulance was a terrible response of 25 minutes, so 35 minutes altogether. The ambulance came from QMC!!!!! The bottom line is that they have not been sending 2 manned ambulances straight away which is what we requested back in 2003. They will do so now and will also put on a better description of Laura's problems which I will draft for them. So hopefully we will get better responses in future. One shocking thing to see was all the "Alert" addresses - about 1/3rd of all calls were to addresses with an "Alert" on them. These mean there is a danger or history of drugs and/or violence etc and these automatically require back-up and so tie up both a paramedic car and an ambulance. No wonder there are so few ambulances available. Grrrrrrr!
So that was the start of the week. The end was rather quieter thank goodness! Laura was at Rainbows and I did some walking. On Friday I walked down to the village centre to pick up a medical certificate from the doctors. It was a lovely day for a walk although it was exhausting and I saw some effects later in the day. I need to be careful not to do too much at a time but build up gradually.
Laura has been a bit "off" since yesterday. Her school nurse rang me late yesterday afternoon to say she had been called twice to attend to her as she was not responding in class. She said she was OK at the moment but were worried about her on the school bus. As it was almost home time and I was alone so couldn't manage to collect her myself, I told her to ask the driver to drop her off first. She seemed fine when she got home but I saw in her diary that she had had a seizure at Rainbows in the morning before school. Surprisingly they had not mentioned it to anyone although had put it in her seizure diary.
Overnight she was OK but didn't wake until 7am this morning which is late for her. She went very clammy and strange half an hour later and had an hours sleep so probably that was another seizure. Her SATs dropped to mid 80s during the morning but no sign of cyanosis so not too worried. She perked up at around lunch time and has been better since then so hopefully is back to normal.
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