Guide Cats For The Blind

You know you're tired when

You stand at the door, pressing the "unlock" button on the key fob, hearing the click clack of the lock, and can't figure out why you can't open the door. Until you realise the front door of your house does not in fact have remote central locking and put the car key down.

You get inside, and realise that even if it did have central locking (and what an outstanding idea that would be), it would not have locked the house, as you left the back door wide open.

And then you realise you are wearing your slippers.

Tia

Silly

From the sublime
To the ridiculous.
Tia

Significant Otters

This made me laugh tonight.
It is possible I am tired.

Tia

Mount Pilatus

Tonight, there is not a part of me which does not ache. Not from walking, not from lifting, not from any kind of exertion, but from several hours spent laughing to the point of hysteria and beyond with Friend. There was a time when we did this regularly. When we shared a house, evening after evening would be spent with tears of laughter rolling down our faces, utterly incomprehensible to our housemates and workmates. It's been far too long.

I can't explain what we were laughing about. It doesn't matter. There was an absent plate of chips, the promise of a kettle, and a distinct lack of hel. Totally unfunny to anyone not the two of us. So instead I'll tell you why the unlaughy muscles ache- Mount Pilatus. Legend has it this mountain was haunted by the ghost of Pontious Pilate. It seems a little unlikely, but oddly appropriate for our Good Friday expedtion. A bus, and then teeny tiny gondolas up the side of the mountain. Mog and I in one, Little Fish and Friend in the next. Panic at seperation reduced by regular waving through the windows. Mog and I livened things up by singing Tell Out My Soul; behind us LF and Friend enlivened the countryside with shouts of "Wheeeeee!" and "Bump bump bump"; shouts which floated up to us faintly over the sounds. Of cowbells, sheep bells, and the tinklerushroar of the Spring Thaw. Beautiful.

And at the top, a truly truly awesome view. Mountains rising above hazy clouds, lakes and valleys like Lego from a stepladder, snow and ice and ageless cold. Amazing. Oh, and a rather nice outdoor restaurant where we ate Rosti and took the above photo. Out of interest, we took the pulse ox, and Mog demonstrated her ability to maintain her sats at high altitude. This should be handy next week. We didn't test our own. Perhaps we should have; it might have persuaded us against our next decision, which was to walk down the lower third of the mountain. Yes, with the girls and their chairs. No, we didn't think this through. The walk was advertised as being easy and taking 1 hour 10 minutes. 30 minutes in, having acheived perhaps 500 yards, we realized that walking down the side of a mountain is perhaps not something to me done with two children in chairs. We then had the somewhat questionable pleasure of climbing back up the same mountain and finding cable cars to take us home again. It's prettier when seen from above anyway I'm sure.

Staggering off the cablecars we wobbled down the road to the bus, which gave us enough time to recover before climbing the stairs back to our hotel rooms. Given how hard we have found this; it does seem a little unlikely we'd ever have managed the side of a mountain. We'll do our best to remember this in the future.

We should have packed, should at the very least have done some sorting out, but instead we shuffled the girls into bed in short order, and then giggled and got extremely silly with the kind of silliliness which can only come when you know each other inside out. And now we ache. And wheeze. And now we must sleep, as tomorrow we move to Interlaken. Rumour has it our next hotel has a lift. I can't tell you how happy that makes us.

Tia

My Funny Valentine

A small child in a bathtub, washing herself. A song bubbling from her lips, a sweet, sweet sound, the tune "Skip to my Lou", the words her own inventions.

"Washing my legs scrubadub scrub
Wash my feet rub an scrub
Wash my bottom, squeeze a little poo...."

My charming child.

And then it is time to get out of the bath, and as I gently dry between her toes, she leans forwards and says "Mummy I love you." And as I melt into a puddle of mothergoo, she continues "Mummy, I love you SO much, so much I squeeze bubbles from my bottom just for you".

Love you too, kid! Is that my best valentine ever or what?

Tia

Snow Day

Here's one to make Trina and anyone else with ice storms laugh.

It has snowed in the night.
Yippeee!!!
School is cancelled, children are celebrating, public transport has shut down, the world has come to a standstill.

For this:Tia

The Logic of Little Fish

The conversation:
"What that Mumma?"
"It's your medicine."
"I not liking that"
"No, it's ok, see, it's in a syringe, I'm going to put it into your tummy tube"
"Why?"
"Because it's good for you"
"Why?"
"Because you need it"
"Why?"
"Just because, ok?"

Brief pause.

"I not liking my banana Mumma"
"Oh dear, never mind, eat it up then"*
"Why?"
"Because it's good for you"
"Why?"
"Because it gives you energy, and vitamins, and helps you to go to the toilet"
"Why?"
"Because it just does**, now eat it up whilst I sort Mog out a minute"

Pause.

And then I return to this:
A banana filled syringe."I not eating that, Mumma, I not liking that, you put it in my tummy tube."

I can't fault the logic.
Tia

*For I am a deeply sympathetic mother
**For I am also a deeply impatient mother.

Ouch

Note to my future self, lest I forget:

1. Midafternoon baths are indeed a good way to spend that miserable hour when a tired and achey toddler refuses to nap. However, when small child wishes to wash spoons in the bath, you should consider the holding capacity of cups and saucepans before offering these as a substitute.

2. When the floor and changing bench are flooded, and should you fail to consider point one, they will be flooded, it is probably better to grab anything at all to mop up with before trying to move small but surprisingly solid child.

3. If you decide to allow child to drip dry whilst sitting on the commode, strong consideration should be given to drying said child's rear end first. Slippery bottoms and smooth seats do not make for a safe combination.

4. It may well be true that getting the child to blow bubbles will facilitate bowel movements. However, leaving the child with a large bottle of bubble liquid will lead, not to major improvements in bubble blowing skills, but to small child with aforementioned slippery bottom skidding off the potty and across the bathroom floor, landing face down under the basin clutching the towel rail.

5. Small wet children coated in bubble mixture are extremely slippery. Picking one up will indeed be like trying to pick up a bowl of jelly without the bowl.

6. One small wet slimy child can combine with a slippery bathroom floor and skate and slither surprisingly successfully.

7. It is important not to get distracted by this new mobility skill. Yes, bubble mixture may have future applications as a physio tool (but probably in the summer and almost certainly in a paddling pool, not on the bathroom floor), but this is not what should be uppermost in your mind when you reach to pick up the small child.

8. Repeatedly grabbing at different assorted limbs as the child you pick up slips out of your hands, giggling, may well not harm the child, but will almost certainly wrench your back.

9. Finally, if you must repeat this exercise at some point in the future, please consider rinsing the towels you did eventually use to mop up the industrial quantities of bubble liquid before you toss them in the washing machine.

That is all.
Tia
edited to add
10. If you decide to plonk small child into her high chair whilst you blog tidy up, please take steps to ensure the packet of dried macaroni is out of reach. Thank you.

Tuesday Blues

It didn't get better today. I started to blog it but it started to bore me, so I'll take you on a trip to some of my happy places instead.

This makes me smile.


This makes me laugh.


And this video from the summer, and this from our April holiday make me remember what excellently wonderful girls I have, how lucky and blessed I am to know them.

And then life probably isn't quite so bad really.
Tia

ps - does anyone know how to re-post a video to blogger without having to upload it a second time? I know Picasa store the photos but where do videos go and how do I recall them?

You might have a medically complex sibling if

You take the fabric seat off your doll's buggy and use it as a play hoist-sling.
You change your doll's nappy and give it a bottle and then give it suction too.
Your doll gets to play a bit and then do physio "big stretches".

You know the format for a proper medical handover and tell the doctors what is wrong before your parent gets a look-in.
You can count the different medicines and turn the feed pump on and off more easily than the babysitters.

You know when your sister needs help and when she's just teasing you.
You understand your sister can't move towards you and so you deliberately position yourself within reach so she can kick you - and then you come to Mumma telling tales!

You accept the fact that your sister needs a lot of help, and in fact you see your sister needing so much extra help that you refuse to accept that you might also have disabilities of your own which might limit you somewhat.
Tia

Courtney, Courtney!

We had a visitor today.
I think it's safe to say both girls were pretty pleased to see their COURTNEY COURTNEY!In fact, I think everyone wanted to see herAnd talk to her, and do puzzles with her,
and show off our new skills with a paintbrushand get all beautifully excited about her, and be more animated and communicative than we've seen for weeks.

And then of course to get wildly overexcited when it's time to get ready for bed.And have to put your tights over your headbecause it is the funniest thing everuntil, suddenly,it is time for sleep.Goodnight, Little Fish! And bye bye Courtney, see you in the summer.

Tia

You might have a medically complex child if

You phone the doctor's surgery to order some repeat prescriptions, and the receptionist not only recognises your voice and pulls up your child's details on the computer before you even ask, she also reminds you about the drug you usually have to phone back for five minutes after you place the initial order.

The same receptionist decides to bypass the system and send your request to the doctor she knows will approve it rather than the duty one who will be confused and baffled by certain parts of it.

Yet again with one hospital outpatient appointment you can tick off several different specialists who catch you as you sit in the waiting room.

You come away from the appointment in the knowledge that your child has been referred to yet another specialist, in a whole new specialism. And you are reasonably pleased about it.

When you get home, you find messages on the phone from another two specialist nurses.

On phoning yet another specialist nurse, and discovering she is off sick, you realise you have the choice of tracking down a different nurse again, borrowing from another parent, or making do for a week. And decide you can work out how to reuse yet more of your disposable items.

You are able to hold a conversation about the consistency and odour of Bisacodyl induced poo as opposed to Movicol stimulated poo. Not only this, but you are for a few seconds deluded into believing this topic is as fascinating to the world at large as it is to your friends with similar life experiences.

You can give a child a drug, knowing that the drug will almost certainly cause significant problems which will land the child in hospital, and yet decide together with the relevant medical professionals that this is the correct course of action.

You can hook a child up to a pulse ox, and make an accurate prediction before the machine has taken a reading.

You can hear a silent seizure from the next room, even when asleep with a pillow over your head.

You can sit beside your child and readjust her head half an inch at a time until you find a position which looks ridiculously uncomfortable, but in which she is no longer obstructing with every breath. And then you can go to sleep hoping she doesn't move her head when yours is under the pillow.

Your bathroom windowsill has not only showergel, toothpaste, toothbrush and shampoo, but also alcohol gel, dressings, surgical tape, sterile saline and latex-free gloves.

Your drugs cupboard is bigger than your drinks cabinet, and the delivery driver from the chemist is so used to your house she now doesn't bother knocking and just walks right in to leave the bags on the hall table.

There are twelve boxes of disposable plastics in your garage, and all of them will be used this month.

You have at least three items of medical equipment plugged in and charging overnight, but you consistently forget to charge the telephone.

You can bribe your small child to do anything with the promise of a teaspoonful of lactulose.

You can fix a broken wheelchair or at least bodge it together until the repairmen come, fashion a joystick controller out of blue tac, parcel tape and a pen lid, keep a running total of various drug totals in your head to avoid overdosing a child in a 24 hour period, simulatenously operate a suction machine, make a phone call, turn off a feed pump and separate a small child from a pair of scissors, but discovering one odd sock which missed the wash can make you cry.

Got any more?
Tia

Yesterday

Yesterday
All our lurgies seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh let's go back to yesterday.

Suddenly,
Little Fish has a fever of 39 degrees
And has puked a puddle on my knee
Her lurgy might be killing me.

Why it wouldn't go,
I don't know, no one will say
I just want to know
If they'll be ill on Christmas Day, hey, hey, hey

Yesterday
Mog was wide awake, hip hip, hurray
Today she slept the day away
It's bedtime now and she wants to play

What this germ might be
I don't know, no one will say
I just want to see
Them both well for Christmas Day, hey hey hey



All I want for Christmas is a week of sleep
A week of sleep
A week of sleep.
All I want for Christmas is a week of sleep.
A week
Of
Sleep.


I think blogging abilities and general all over brain functioning would be improved no end.

I am off. To dream, perchance to sleep.
Tia

Healthcare Bingo

Bored of the postcode lottery? I offer you an alternative, which may be played whatever your address and from the comfort of your own home. This is I suppose the armchair version of the Special Parent Olympics.

You will need at least one child with complex medical needs, score bonus points for having more than one. You will need to have at least theoretical access to a variety of different healthcare professionals, with ideally a range of specialities, and a number of different categories of professional.

All set? Good.

There are two ways of playing this. The first requires planning, forethought, and a "week to view" diary. The challenge? To arrange sufficient appointments to see each and every one of those professionals within a standard Monday to Friday week (outpatient appointments only; being admitted is cheating*).

The second is in theory a faster game. For this version, you need only your telephone and infinite patience with receptionists. Take your telephone, and attempt to make contact with at least one healthcare professional in each speciality. There is a time limit on this, and that is the time available to you whilst your youngest child watches a feature length episode of the Teletubbies.

Bonus points are available should you manage to make direct contact with a doctor. Medium prizes available should any doctors spontaneously call you during this time frame. And to win the jackpot, you need to be phoned by the consultant from a different speciality, before you have managed to leave any messages for him.

A small extra prize is available (or if it isn't, it jolly well should be), for managing to juggle these phonecalls with an in-house appointment with a bed rep. If you manage to contact the OT and let her know said rep has turned up 30 minutes early, you may be rewarded with the gift of her presence. Suctioning a small child whilst continuing to receive the qualifying phonecalls will give you a larger gift; the OT will decide you definitely need the more expensive superwhizzy expensive bed with the fancy bedsides and decent profiling mattress.

Listening to the bed rep discuss dimensions of the bed with the OT and requesting that the OT measures the available space in the bedroom will win you an additional prize - a Disabled Facilities Grant assessment (with added extra of larger drive to accommodate larger more accessible and more able to convey larger amounts of equipment van).

This will, in a few month's time, win the biggest prize of all - more builders. Marvellous.
Tia



*Being admitted with an unidentified illness requiring the immediate attention of at least one professional from each speciality entitles you to play hospital bingo instead; House may be called only if you manage to see all those professionals within the initial 4 hours in A&E. An extra prize available if by the end of the admission you have gained access to a new set of specialist in a hitherto unvisited area of medicine.

Feline Fury

So, because my life just wasn't interesting enough, I came back home this afternoon to the sounds of many cats calling.

When I moved into this flat five years ago, I moved in with my cat Henry. Henry liked it here. He liked the flat, he liked the neighbourhood, he liked the neighbours. He liked some of the neighbours so much that he ended up moving in with them. Two years after we moved in, he moved on. Initially it was part-time; he'd disappear for 24 hours and come back ravenous, but as time went on he called in less and less.

Two years ago he came back for a visit after a gap of several months. He'd broken a tooth, so I took him to the vet, who promptly pulled all but one of his teeth out. Henry didn't much care for this, and ran off again. And that was the last I saw of him. It's been 18 months even since I've seen him outside.

I know it's been two years, because Little Fish has never met Henry. Or rather, Little Fish had never met Henry. She can't say that anymore. We came home tonight after a day out with the Guides. And were greeted by an interesting mix of hiss, growl, and meep. Henry is back. Goway and Comeback are not impressed. Henry is not impressed either, how dare I open his house to two more cats?

So now Henry is ensconced under the armchair in the corner of the sitting room. Goway is scratching and pulling at his skin, and occasionally peering under the chair to hiss loudly then run away, shaking. Comeback is sleeping with his head on my feet, worn out from not only shouting at Henry but also from the rather splendid fight he just got into with his own reflection in Mog's mirror.

There must be something about that mirror tonight - Goway is now boxing his reflection in it.

Henry, unpeturbed, continues to wash himself under the chair. He's both fatter and flatter than he was two years ago; scruffy with a tail that drags and a back paw which is either muddy or bloody, he won't let me close enough to work out which.

Little Fish thinks this is either deeply terrifying or possibly terribly funny - I'm working on the humour side for her and busy providing dialogue to accompany the cats' cries. Who knew that "YeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEaaaaaaaaoooorrrrowghroughrowwwwwWWWWWWWWWWwkkkkssssssssssssssssssss" could actually mean "hello you two beautiful cats who live in this house now will you let me live here too and be your friend?"

Mog is above worrying about such things - Norah Jones is skipping all over the place (there was an unfortunate incident with Lactulose and a CD case) and this is far more distressing.

And me? I want to know what is so utterly dreadful about Supermarket Premium Kitty Chunks in individual foil sachets that all three cats are now refusing to eat them, preferring to extract them from the various bowls and chase them across the kitchen floor.

It's been an odd kind of a day all round really. A man knocked on the door earlier, and when I opened it, he shook me by the hand for raising my autistic son. I'm still trying to work that one out.

Tia

Code Brown

This is a post about poo. Those of you who live in my world may appreciate it. Those of you reading it who don't dabble in it daily may prefer to skip this post. You have been warned! I'll sling a photo at the bottom (not poo-related) so you know when it is safe to start reading again.

It is amazing how far poo can spread. Before today, Little Fish was the winner in the poo spreading competition. Take one set of loose bowels, and one wheelchair with large bicycle style wheels (plenty of spokes. Sit explosive child in the wheelchair, watch helplessly as diarrhea seeps out of the top of the nappy and drips onto the wheels of the chair. Shout in horror. This will scare the child, who will propel themselves rapidly towards you as poo continues to drip down. Centrifugal force will ensure the poo droplets are scattered freely as the wheels turn - a rare case of the poo actually hitting the fan.

That was then. This is now. Little Fish is a bit of a sheepdog; the easiest way to upset her is to exclude her from a room. The easiest way to keep her in a good mood is to allow her to help me in everything I do. This does get a bit personal at times; how do you gently explain to a child that whilst yes, I do indeed wipe her bottom for her, I don't in fact need help wiping my own? Not me today though but Mog in need of a change.

So, I go to lift Mog onto the changing bench to be greeted by Little Fish's ear shattering squeaks about being left in her wheelchair. I scoop her up and sat her by Mog's feet, feeling my feet slip in something as I d so. Looking down I make the always pleasing discovery of a nice poo puddle in Mog's wheelchair, combined with a pretty sprinkling of droplets across the floor and sides of the bench, and a further poo puddle now sitting pretty on the clean white towel I had not moved out of the way left on the bench to protect Mog from the coldness of the plastic. Marvelous.

I start to strip Mog off, attempting to pivot Little Fish around as I do so, to keep her pink polka dot boots out of the mess. Little Fish struggles and wriggles, creating ripples across the bench, which in turn send a fine tidal wave of poo from the top of Mog's pad up towards her shoulder blades. This is not your average daily poo here, this is the cumulative effect of several days coughing up phlegm from deep inside your lungs and then swallowing it instead of spitting. It is pale brown and vaguely jelly like, with a deeply offensive odour. Just painting the word picture here (aren't you glad I resisted the camera?), trying to share the misery keep things real.

So, ignoring Little Fish and refusing to allow her immediate access to her toothbrush, I concentrate on cleaning Mog. And her wheelchair. And the floor, bench, bathtub under the bench, and my feet. Finally I have a large pile of vile laundry which I wrap in the least offensive item and post into the washing machine. Forget eco friendly washing at 30, this little lot is on a boil wash with double helpings of washing liquid.

Back to the bathroom, and I return Mog to her chair. She is grinning. I am suspicious. One further change of inco pad, and now dressed in her pyjamas (for ease of removal next time) later, she is finally reinstalled in her wheelchair. Where she proceeds to show me just how blue her arms and legs can turn now that she's coming off the Lamotrigine, but that's another post).

Little Fish is now left on the bench in solitary splendour. She objects when I begin to push Mog out of the bathroom, so leaving Mog beside me I now start to change Little Fish. Hand wash then drops in her eye, hand wash again then new dressing on her stoma, hand wash again then finally on to her own nappy. Bearing in mind she has not in fact started the co-amoxiclav at this point in time due to delivery issues, I am somewhat surprised to discover that she too is thickly coated in the brown stuff. As I clean her up she starts to poo again, so I whip her off the bench in an attempt to get to her commode, forgetting that Mog is blocking the way. With hindsight, this was not a good thing to forget. Mog narrowly avoids being pood upon from a great height as I somehow fling Little Fish, bottom end first, towards the toilet. She doesn't hit the toilet, she doesn't hit the commode, big soggy splats of poo instead drip across the floor looking like giant Hersheys kisses. But no contact with Mog or my feet or the cat, so this will count as a bonus.

Back onto the bench and I clean her up, now adding her newest nappy rash cream. It's a prescription cream, and as I open it I discover it needs to be kept in the 'fridge. It's a good job she's not got much feeling! First dose of co-amoxiclav has been administered and I await with slight trepidation the effects this will have. Meanwhile, scrubbing the bathroom floor is always interesting - it has a non-slip flooring which is not unlike fine sandpaper. Good for walking on when it's wet, but have you ever tried cleaning poo out of sandpaper? Or velcro?

And now as I write this Mog has produced further vileness.

Can I resign from motherhood now please?

And for all those of you who were skipping to the bottom, here's a pretty picture to let you know I've stopped.

Tia

Fits and Starts

My one minute workout on Monday night got me thinking. I'm not convinced that's always a good thing. But, for what it's worth, here are my thoughts.

Parents, too busy caring to get to the gym? Children, have you overheard people telling your parents what a burden you must be and how you take, take, take, without giving back?

I have the answer. A fitness programme for parents, where the child gets to be the coach. It's the Special Parent Olympics.

Some suggested routines.

The hurdle.

Child, position yourself in line of sight, but preferable separated from your parent by a stack of dirty washing, a puddle of spilt milk, assorted furniture and a small pet. Turn blue.

For added variety, return to your usual colour as your parent reaches you, and smile sweetly. Allow your mother to return to to her previous position, then choke. Repeat as necessary; seizures, spasms, screams, and trapping your head between wheelchair and headrest will serve to prevent boredom.

Long Jump.

Child, aim a projectile vomit so that it lands in a giant puddle separating you from your parent. Then choke. For a bonus point, ensure your mother's slippers are your side of the puddle.

High Jump.

Child, aim your projectile vomit upwards (a good thorough vent/decompression via gastrostomy tube will serve this purpose too) and ensure it is sticky enough to stain the ceiling.

Sprint.

It is best to be outside for this one. Wait until your mother has temporarily let go of the handles of your wheelchair, then jump to get the chair rolling again. Shout just seconds before you are due to hit the hedge at the bottom of the path.

Alternatively, ensure your parent is out of sight, then make a variety of suspicious noises.

Weights.

So many possibilities. Losing the ability to self-wind, ensuring that the parent must lift you to their shoulder and jiggle repeatedly is a good start.

Break the hoist, or, if you can, roll out of reach of the ceiling track.

Slide down in bed, wrapping yourself around the duvet and under the mattress to ensure the parent gets a good stretch in place whilst trying to disentangle you, lifting you and mattress at the same time. If you can kick your sleeping system onto the floor this will ensure the parent gets a good chance of lifting at a lower level too.

If you have a power chair, arranging for this to cut out in the middle of the road just as the little green man disappears can be quite effective too.

Resistance training.

Active participation in your physiotherapy programme will help your parents with this. Push back as they attempt to manipulate your limbs, the occasional spasm mid-stretch will help with their reaction times too.

Dressing and intimate personal care are other particularly effective times to enable your parents to work on this. Cross your legs at the knees and stay clenched, no matter what. This will work their hands, wrists, arms, shoulders and back. Point toes at all times, unless parents are attempting to put your socks on, in which case a bend and wiggle is most effective. Keeping your fists clenched will facilitate their thumb workouts. Remember at all times to relax the limb not being actively worked on, save your own strength to put into the arm currently being pushed into a sleeve or leg into trousers. Throwing an arm out and to the side will give you good leverage to push back when your parents attempt to roll you over - this again will give them a good arm and back workout.

Speed and reaction training.

Develop a 2 second warning routine before any sneeze, vomit, choke or bowel movement. This will ensure your parents come running but will also mostly ensure that they have the ability to work on their resistance training as outlined in the previous paragraph too. The timing is crucial; no warning, and they will avoid the speed training, instead pausing to gather clean up tools before approaching you. Too much warning and they will instead avoid the resistance training follow up.

Relay.

This is easier if you can team up with a sibling. Position yourselves in different rooms, then one of you needs to have a seizure, whilst the other needs to dislodge their ventilator. Standard variations (seizures, spasms, vomits, smearing) allowed.

For a cross country relay, ensure that your professionals schedule appointments at consecutive times but at opposite ends of the same hospital. Some children have attempted to manage this with separate hospitals, but have found parents avoid the exercise and instead drive from one to the next.

An in-patient variation of the relay may be acheived by releasing your parent to go to the canteen. Time your next medical emergency for the moment your parent reaches the tills to pay for their food. Timing is crucial - too late and the parent will return with food in hand, too soon and the parent will simply abandon the idea of food. The perfect timing includes a panicked phonecall from the ward at the very moment the parent is paying for the food. With practice, this should ensure the parent abandons their handbag and purse at the till, thus requiring them to run back to the canteen once they have run back to the ward to discover that your crisis was not life-threatening.

Endurance.

Have yourself admitted to a hospital which prevents parents from eating or drinking on the ward, and then remain too unwell for the parents to leave your bedside. For variety, see suggestions for relay above.

As an outpatient, your best time for this workout is at night. Wait quietly until you hear your parent turn out their bedside light. Cry loudly and inconsolably. Resist sleep until you have been rocked and patted and sung to for at least an hour. Close your eyes eventually and if you can manage to relax all your body tone so your parent is forced to hold you tight against their body and waddle back to the bedroom, so much the better. Keep those eyes closed as the parent puts you into bed, turns off the light, and stumbles back into their own bed. Allow the parent two minutes and forty two seconds of rest, before crying loudly and inconsolably again. NB this may be combined with the relay, if your sibling is cooperative.

It's best to combine this with being too ill for school or your parent may not benefit from the full 24 hour experience.

Agility.

Require suctioning and venting simultaneously.
Kick out to dislodge your feed pump whilst having a nose bleed.
Lose all head control during each and every manual transfer.
Insist on your parent holding you at all times, especially when trying to talk on the telephone and have a drink.
Collude with siblings or cats to ensure your parent always has more than one living object to hold.
When out and about, refuse to push your own wheelchair, forcing your parent to push two wheelchairs at once. For added variety, insist on bringing your own doll's pram and then stop pushing that halfway home.
Arrange for one handlebar to collapse repeatedly at unexpected intervals. This is especially effective when being bumped up or down kerbs or past parked cars.
Tell all your friends to invite you to visit, but omit to inform your parents that they live in a 2nd floor flat with no lift.
Get into the swimming pool, then bribe the lifeguard or snotty child playing next to you to break the hoist.

Tia

Worming the Cat

A long time ago, I had a kitten*. I called her Sadie. She lived with me in my flat, until I changed jobs, at which point she went to live with my parents. I'd like to introduce you to her now.
She'd shake you by the hand, but she needs it for support. This cat needs a caption.

Sadie is not the kindest nor the gentlest of cats. Getting her into the cat box requires boxing gloves dexterity; getting her out of the cat box at the vets requires life insurance and chain mail great bravery.

There are standard tricks for getting our feline friends to swallow pills. My cat Henry would simply take them like an extra treat, swallow them down and come back for more. Pussy needed forcing encouraging, but wouldn't fight too hard; a gentle upwards stroke against her throat would stimulate a swallow and that would be that**.

Sadie will have none of that. I can wrap a cat. Give me a large towel, and I can momentarily mummify the majority of moggies , immobilising them long enough to force the pill between clenched jaws***, do the upwards "you WILL swallow"stroke, and sending the pill stomachwards. Sadie shreds towels. and hands.

Sadie needed a course of antibiotics a few years ago, and I called on a friend, sister of a vet nurse for advice. Up the phone line went the request, down the line came the response "Marmite". Crush the pill, mix it with Marmite, plaster it on the cat's paw. The cat will lick the paw clean, enjoy the taste of the Marmite, and rather handily finish off the pill at the same time. The suggestion worked well a few years ago; well it did until I ran out of Marmite and tried to use honey instead. Sadie was not impressed and let the wallpaper know all about it (yes parents, that is where that mark in the sitting room comes from). But as long as I stuck to Marmite, all was well.

So, Mum and Dad invited the girls and I to lunch yesterday. We arrived and I was handed a large worming tablet for Sadie's refusal delectation. Telling them the story of our Marmite success, I crushed the pill and mixed it. For reasons best known to themselves, Mum and Dad keep their Marmite (which they themselves never eat) in the 'Fridge. This sets it solid. As any Marmite fan will know, a faint trace of goo is all one needs. This is impossible to achieve with 'fridged Marmite. So I scooped out a spoonful and mixed it with the worming tablet. Looking and feeling rather smug at this point, I grabbed Sadie who had come to say hello, and offered her the teaspoon of Marmite. She was not impressed, so I smeared half a spoonful over her front paw. Even less impressed; Sadie shook her foot, and the Marmite which, if warm, would have stuck firmly to her paw instead careened off her foot and in a gentle arc across the kitchen, splattering fetchingly across Mum's shirt. Two large gobs also landed up hanging from Sadie's whiskers.

Sadie retreated to the garden to wash her paws, Mum threw her shirt into a bucket of bleach. Sadie returned for comfort after the wicked nasty Tia person had smeared her with Marmite. Instead of comfort, I continued to smear her with Marmite - one teaspoonful goes a long way when spread across a cat's paws. It may have been quicker to use the butter knife, but I suspect Sadie might have had a go at stabbing me with it.

Mum's shirt was transferred from bleach to soapy water, and we enjoyed a good meal. Sadie returned to forgive Mum and Dad and to try to eat the remains of the gammon keep her eye on me incase I did anything else evil. I scrubbed more Marmite off the kitchen floor.

We drank coffee, the girls enjoyed fruit crumble and custard and good company. Mum took her shirt out of the soapy water, wrung it out thoroughly and laid it on the work surface, ready to hang out, having checked that all traces of Marmite had been thoroughly removed.

Such a shame that she chose to lay it down on the bit of work surface where the coffee had been poured. Some people just shouldn't wear white shirts - I think it's genetic.

Sadie needs three more pills; we've left the Marmite out of the 'fridge and I hope it works less messily for Mum and Dad than it did yesterday. Even with the mess, still easier than trying to wrap her. And probably equally entertaining for anyone watching.

Meanwhile Dad went out to mow the lawn at the back of the house and somehow managed to blow the electric circuits at the front of the house without affecting those in the middle. I'm sure that's a fairly clever trick too.

Tia

*When I say I had a kitten, I didn't actually give birth to said kitten. But I visited her when she was teeny tiny, and brought her home with me when she was old enough to leave her mother, who was in fact a cat.

**This technique also works with children. Don't ask me how I know.

***To force a pill between clenched jaws, gently slide a finger inside one cheek to the back of the teeth then wiggle slightly to loosen the grip. This is a technique I learnt first with children. It's important to be calm and gentle when doing this. When the object clenched between the child's jaws is in fact another of your fingers, this is not always easy. But the additional pain caused by the panicked over clenching which shouting causes is really not worth it****.


****The jawbones of both cats and children can and do break. Don't sue me if this happens to you. Soft and gentle and slow. Or Marmite. I've not tried Marmite against a child's bite before but how much worse could it get?*****

*****Don't answer that.

You might have a medically complex child (or two) if...

When you get to outpatients, the receptionist recognises you.

The nurse weighing your child is the same nurse who did pre-consultant checks in a different hospital, the day before; and who will be going on the same holiday as you later this summer!

As you wait for your appointment, you are greeted by one specialist nurse who takes the opportunity to have a quick chat instead of making a phone call.

As she leaves, another specialist nurse (different specialism) comes up to say hello.

This second nurse is followed by a paediatrican (not your child's).

You realise that you have been in hospital for seven of the past eight working days, without once being an inpatient.

When you get to see the consultant after a 45 minute wait, you are impressed with how short a wait that was compared to afternoon appointments.

A different specialist nurse, one who knows your inability to sign and return forms, is waiting in the consulting room with a form to be signed by you.

You are given open access to the specialist ward, and you consider this to be a good thing.
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Home tomorrow and back to reality. New plan of action for Mog's seizures; we are initially going to try to increase one of her seizure meds. The most likely side effect of this will be that she will not sleep. Wonderful.

But for tonight, Little Fish has settled after making hand and foot prints with someone from the BBC, Mog is having stories read to her and is alternately giggling and twitching, and I am going to swim traipse back to my flat for another quiet night.

Tia