By way of balance, yesterday was a better day. During my visit in the afternoon, J asked that her named nurse explain a traffic light warning method that had been suggested on the previous day. J is currently on Level 1 Obs (this is when a nurse has to be in line of sight at all times) - for J this is mainly to discourage her from the improvised ligaturing. The traffic light idea was basically a very simple way for J communicate her level of risk in an effective way without having to explain too much. What I liked about this is that we might be also able to identify the "light-amber" and even "green" moments, because when J is very depressed she can never recall when life was better, even if it was just the day before.
Slowly the our trust with staff is being rebuilt. As you know, if you've read the previous posts, when things don't go right I develop a hate-hate attitude towards consultants and specifically the whole of the Bradgate Unit who always have a lot of redeeming to do in my eyes.
J gets to see a new consultant tomorrow, hopefully a fresh start will do everyone good. J told me that the ward occupational therapist has agreed to work with her one-to-one since J sometimes struggles with joining group activities.
Again, I'm having to suppress the cynicism and over-protectiveness. We're still in limbo regarding J's possible extradition to the unit in Birmingham.
Yesterday morning I had some support for myself from a social worker from the local county council. On a practical and bureaucratic level there's not many options open to me as a carer whilst J is in hospital, but he did a fair amount of signposting to other organisations so that I get advice, and is prompting me to chat to a doctor about my own stress levels. I'm particularly freaked out at the moment that I may have dug myself into rut, financially and psychologically. Naturally this spills out when I'm trying to support J on the phone or in person, and frankly she really has enough on her plate to deal with.
Anyhow. It was a better day. I need to make sure I record the better days. Thanks for reading.
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