The bad news is, our weekend carers cancelled, Waitrose cancelled their delivery too, and most of our Christmas presents are apparently in Inverclyde.
The good news is, the milkman made it, and managed to bring bacon and eggs and other essential breakfast supplies as well.
The bad news is, the milk froze on the doorstep.
The good news is, this reminded me of my childhood.
The bad news is, I don't remember this happening back then
The good news is, we still have plenty of milk and not too much of it dripped down behind the 'fridge where it will turn into evil-smelling cheese.
The bad news is, I had no contact from playscheme to say it had been cancelled.
The good news is, our morning carer turned up - an hour late, but in time to give Mog a shower and get her wrapped up.
More good news in the form of several weather forecasts all promising a foggy but snow free day, so we wrapped up warmly and hiked over to Mog's school to see if the playscheme was running. Even better news, it was!
I dropped the girls and step/fumble/stepped my way over to Waitrose. Bad news; I remembered I had not packed Little Fish a lunch for playscheme, so bought her a sandwich and made plans to trek back to school after going to the chemist.
Good news; playscheme rang and offered to cook her some pasta and sauce!
Bad news; I got to the chemist to ask for LF's prescription, and they told me that it won't be in until January 10th.
I point out that they have had the prescription request for two weeks, and that perhaps it might have been useful to tell me this sooner, as I now have just two doses left. They shrug.
I walk to other chemists, balk at the queue, and realise that I am wasting time; last time they couldn't get it, no other company could either and none of them keep it in stock as it has a limited shelf life. So I head over to the GP surgery, where I queue to speak to a receptionist. She directs me to the prescriptions lady; I join a different queue. Eventually I reach the front of the queue, with a new respect for the wonderful prescription lady who remains calm despite unending phone calls and queries and forgotten names of drugs and complicated spelling issues.
I explain the issue. She says she will speak to the doctor about prescribing an alternative. I sit. Thirty minutes later, someone else hands me the original prescription, together with a note claiming that Consult Pharmacy (extreme far end of town in opposite direction to home and playscheme) have it in stock. I hike over to Consult Pharmacy, who look at the prescription and tell me they will have to order it in. I am not best pleased with the Surgery at this point. They phone, and are promised delivery by tomorrow afternoon.
The bad news; as they phone I hear them read out the prescription and realise it is the wrong strength medication.
The good news; if they hadn't read it out over the phone I would not have noticed and would have been giving LF a double dose, and all I now have to do is give half the normal dose which means that one bottle will last twice as long.
By this point, it is snowing fairly heavily once again, and I am not altogether surprised when the playscheme supervisor rings me to say playscheme is closed.
The bad news; I'm now 1.5 miles from school and it'll take me a while to walk there.
The good news; I'm not the last parent to turn up.
The bad news; I then have to wait 15 minutes for staff to finish changing the girls so I can take them home.
The good news; I find the phone number for a local taxi firm which has accessible taxis.
The bad news; they have no accessible taxis running today.
The good news; by the time the girls are all changed and buttoned into coats and blankets, the snow has stopped.
The bad news; it's still cold, it's still a mile home, and the new snowfall has made it almost impossible for Little Fish to get any traction in her powerchair.
We do eventually get home, and collapse together onto a nice soft settee. Little Fish's lunch proves to be enough for all of us, I have some rather nice Apple Yvonne* in the 'fridge, and we don't have to go anywhere else today.
The bad news; the cats have apparently objected to the snow and messed on the floor.
The good news; I have cat litter and a tray, so make them up a toilet.
The bad news; they flee at the sight of this, out through the cat flap and sit under the hedge where they proceed to do the things cats need to do.
The good news; the snow is still jolly pretty and now that I am warm and can feel my toes again, there was a nice jolly epic-ness of the four hour hike I hadn't planned to do. And now it's snowing again.
I'm not entirely sure how we're going to get that bottle of oxybutinin tomorrow though... I am however considering the purchase of a milk-float, this apparently being more reliable than delivery lorries, post vans, and carers four wheel drive cars.
Tia
*Swedish Apple Charlotte a favourite here; cooked apple underneath with cornflakes, butter and sugar on the top. Had no cornflakes and so made it with porridge oats instead. No longer Swedish but vaguely Scottish, so renamed after my sister-in-law.
7 comments:
I am worn out reading that!
Hope you are all snugly wrapped up in bed before too long and have a nice restful night!
I hope somone can get your medicine for you too. I dont see you playing push me pull you in the snow to the chemist somehow!
Hugs
What a coincidence; all my presents are in Inverclyde too.
I do find it astonishing that the surgery can your prescriptions wrong so regularly. How difficult can it be?
I agree with Tina... that sounds EXHAUSTING!!
Wow what a day.
Appreciate how you are able to keep this great perspective.
An encouragement
Debra
May,
I don't blog the many times the prescriptions are right because, what's the interest in that?
The girls have a fairly long list of pills and potions between them, some of them are prescribed by the GP and others from hospital doctors. Some of the hospital prescribed meds can only be collected at the hospital, which is a pain. Others our GP will prescribe for us which makes life a lot easier. But - when hospital consultants change the dose of a drug, it can take several weeks before the letter which discusses this makes it hospital to GP surgery (it goes via India for typing which definitely doesn't speed things up!).
Meanwhile, that means a bottle of one drug which used to last a month now only lasts 2 weeks. So we reorder, and reorder, and reorder, which is fine until there's a supply problem. In an attempt to get more supplied, I phoned the surgery - but our doctor has just left so we have all been assigned temporary doctors (and different doctors for different last names, just to complicate matters). I explained what I needed to the doctor who kindly phoned to sort it, but somehow wires got crossed and 5mls became 5mgs. Once I have this bottle in my hands, I will phone up again and try to sort it, but I don't want to do that until we actually have some of the drug, just incase that causes a further delay.
The surgery is pretty good usually - having waited in prescriptions I can see why anyone not familiar with it would get ridiculously flustered by it.
Tia
Whew, what a day! The snow is lovely, but hiking all over chasing down meds doesn't sound fun at all.
Hope you have/had a good night!
how is it that so much bad news never ruins your wonderful sense of humor?
i want to grow up to be just like you.
sorry for all these mishaps.
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