Tuesday Appointment Day

The Nurse from the ADHD Dept was due to come for a home visit this morning. We received a phone call from her at about 8am, but no one managed to get to the phone in time! She wanted to check what the whether was like over where we live, before she set off! I walked round with the phone for the next 3/4s of an hour to make sure I didn't miss another call from her! When she rang again, she said she was a bit nervous about coming out to us as she had got stuck in the snow and had to be dug out twice on Friday!! I assured her that if she stuck to the motorway and main A road she would be fine to visit. Luckily I persuaded her not to cancel the visit and she arrived about an hour later.

I gave her all the forms that we'd been sent by the ADHD Dept, I hadn't been able to post them to her sooner as school had been closed and I'd only had the form from them last Friday. She understood and wasn't bothered. I've just got to get a copy of Little Prince's last school report and send that in, I can only find the year before last's report!!

The Nurse started to ask questions to fill in another form, starting with the basics - full name, date of birth etc. She started to ask about pregnancy and birth, which didn't get very far as Little Prince is adopted and we don't know his birth family's medical history or about his birth Mother's pregnancy with him or his birth. She then asked me what were the main issues with we had with Little Prince's behaviour. After we'd been through all the different issues we have, she said we would be seen by the Consultant Paediatrician in the New Year, and to allow 2-3 hours for the appointment. She also made me aware that the only "treatment" offered by the ADHD Dept is medication and discussed the pros and cons of that and what the checks would be on how it is or isn't helping Little Prince. She also said that they only usually prescribe medication to be taken during the school week, and not at weekends or in school holidays. This will obviously help Little Prince at school, which he definitely needs, but I'm not sure how much difference it will make to our family life :-(

We discussed Little Prince's diagnosis of ASD, she wasn't convinced that the route to diagnosis taken by the previous Hospital was the correct one. She is going to recommend that he also be referred to the local CAHMS Autism Unit for a reassessment of this diagnosis. She feels that if his Autism is either so mild or non existent, that it is doing him a disservice having that on his medical record, as it could have serious repercussions on his adult life, he would be barred from some career paths because of the Autism diagnosis. After fighting so hard to accept this diagnosis applied to MY boy, I am now in two minds about its withdrawal!! He does seem to display a fair few Autistic like behaviours, and this diagnosis has got him a lot of support in school, which he desperately needs! So will it be in his best interests to take that diagnosis away?

Minutes after the ADHD Nurse had left, Mr Messy arrived home with Princess Lollipop. He dropped her back off with me and went back to OUR shop to get some work done. I got her settled down for a short nap, before I had to get us both ready to go and pick Little Prince up to go to our joint Podiatry appointments. We went straight in at the Podiatry Clinic, and she saw both of us within about 15 minutes. I explained that I have been having a lot of pain in the recent cold weather, and she said that the only solution to that would be steroid injections, so I'll have to think carefully about if and when to go ahead with that. I decided I could put up with the pain at the moment! She checked Little Prince by getting him to stand on tiptoes on one foot and then the other, which showed he was healed and getting stronger. As he is hypermobile she wants to keep an eye on him until he stops growing, so she is going to review us both again in 6 months.

Both littlies demanded something to eat when we left the Podiatry Clinic, so as usual we went over to the fast food restaurant! We go there WAY to much!!! Part way there Little Prince changed his mind and said he wanted to go back to school and have a friend over to play instead! He was in such a bad mood that we got a drive through instead of risking him playing up if I took him inside the restaurant itself! He carried on being in a BAD mood the whole time we were all eating, and then moaned the whole way home too. I hate days like this!! But I got myself so stressed and worried over this morning's ADHD Nurse appointment that I couldn't have coped with him having his friend J over to play!!

At home the littlies played chase and run up and down the lounge, and had a great time. Although Princess Lollipop has learnt how to win, she runs half way along the lounge (with Little Prince ahead of her) and then turns back and gets back to the beginning first. Then she giggles madly and looks so pleased with herself :-)

Mr Messy has just rung up to say that Drama Teen will be getting off her college bus at OUR shop instead of at home. The bus has been incredibly delayed and at only 10 minutes before she is normally at home they have only just left the college town!! This is the same town I got stuck in yesterday, so perhaps its caused by the volume of Christmas shoppers!!