Dinky wanted to go to school, so she did.
I got home and waited for the mind advocate to drop by with the letter requesting a change in nurses. My phone rang, I forgot to save her number but the first 5 numbers were the same as hers so I picked up.
"hi, is this *****? This is S from CMHT."
Shit! I was so not in the mood to talk to her! I was irritable, and annoyed that she had already spoken to the mind advocate and still decided to contact me.
I think S might have some self esteem issues of her own! She asked me how I was and I said 'fine' and she said I seemed off with her. I wasn't showing that I was annoyed by her in the beginning of her conversation but in that moment I started to get annoyed with her. I just am not 100% at the moment. I said " ok maybe I'm not fine, but I will be." she repeated it and asked if I wanted to talk about it. "no not really" she asked how my Christmas was. I did get a little short with her, "crap, I was in a hostel with my kid." she asked if dinky liked her space toys. This just shows she wasn't bloody listening. Yes dinky is still into space but she already has a ton of space toys and wanted avengers and jake and the Neverland pirate toys. I just said yes. It's easier than explaining that she was wrong. I understand she has lots of people to see and can't remember everyones little bits and pieces but you'd think she would make accurate notes and have them in front of her when making that call. Maybe not! She asked if I wanted to make another appointment with her. I said not right now. This is where it gets awkward and I get bloody annoyed and have to act civilly and hold my tongue.
S: well. It is ok if you don't want to see me anymore, I can discharge you back to your GP. Or I can keep your case one with me and you can make an appointment when you feel ready.
In my head: so those are my only fucking choices? See you or go back to my GP? What about... If you don't want to see me I can get someone else to see you if you feel like you still need the support of CMHT.
While I was thinking there was a small silence
S: it is up to you, I am governed by you, if you don't feel like you are getting anything out of seeing me then I can always make recommendations to your GP maybe get you going back to the short term counselling service. Or I can leave your case open with me. What would you like to do?
Well, if she shut the case then, I wouldn't be able to change nurses, so I had to keep my case open.
Me: can you keep the case open please.
S: keep the case open?
Me: yes please.
it was so hard to sound pleasant)
S: hmm, ok, let me know if you feel like making an appointment to see me.
End of call.
Seriously! She makes out my only option is to see her or go back to my GP. Like changing isn't an option. Sometimes it feels like she just wants me to say 'yeah, just send me back to the GP', that way she wouldn't have to deal with me.
Another thing I didn't pick up on until now... She said I'm 'not mentally strong enough for counselling', yet said she would Make recommendations for me to go back to short term counselling. She contradicts herself so much. Muppet!
When the mind advocate came over I told her about the conversation. Apparently S had tried to coax info out of her too as to why I cancelled the appointment. After I told her about what I thought of the call she said it probably was best I didn't go this morning otherwise her wordings might have sparked a argument, one that I would pay the price for.
So the letter had been sent, I should hear back next week some time about changing nurses. Which will be a step in the right direction.
Why is it always so much hassle?
Showing posts with label mental health nurse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental health nurse. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
Mind advocate, changing mental health nurse, and dinky goes to hospital... All in a days work!
Today was one of those days!
So dinky was up at 4.30am courtesy of our noisy neighbour downstairs. She was dressed and breakfasted at 6.30am. Got to school at 8.20, did the phonics and off I went.
I got a phone call from B again telling me what I ought to do while I apply for jobs, so much so my new response to her when she goes off on one "ah huh, yep, good idea, yeah I will look into it" and repeat!
Got home, tidied up and cleaned the floor, waited for the mind advocate to discuss my issues with the mental health nurse. She was really nice and she asked me to go through our appointments chronologically and tell her any little comments or anything that made me uncomfortable and we would discard anything that we agree is not really a big issue. When I told her some of the stuff S had said S was very inappropriate and I had every right to feel aggrieved. I told her how she can be very contradictory in what she says, I gave 3 examples, apparently there is no wonder I get confused by the mixed messages. The advocate asked me about my care plan. My response "what care plan?", according to he the advocate I'm supposed to be involved in my care and treatment. That's a laugh!
She ran through the options. I could:
Talk to her in the appointment for tomorrow at 9.30am but work on bullet points with the advocate
Rearrange the appointment and have the advocate present
Cancel the appointment and try to change mental health nurse without advocates help
Cancel the appointment and try to change mental health nurse with advocates help
Make a formal complaint
I opted for cancel appointment and change mental health nurse with advocates help, without making a formal complaint.
So after the major confusion as to which office S actually answers to out of the two offices she is attached to, we manage to cancel the appointment and ask how to go about changing nurses. I have to write a letter to the manager of the nurse practitioners. So we worked out exactly what to say, the advocate is going to type it up and bring it round for me to sign tomorrow. Normally I'd do it myself, but I have enough to deal with. It's different, to let someone else help, odd and uncomfortable, but it is one less thing for me to have to deal with. The advocate even gave her number to the CMHT. S phoned and left a message on the advocates phone. She is going to fob S off until the paper work goes in to change nurses. Awkward and severely uncomfortable situation avoided!
Went to get dinky from school. On the way home we get some carrots to feed the horse she rode on Sunday and the other horse in the field. I broke the carrots up and dinky fed the horses. All was well until the white horse sniffed dinky's hand and chomped hard. I heard a pop and dinky scream I instantly tried to grab dinky's hand but the horse wouldn't let go. I instinctively tapped it on the nose and shouted "OFF!". The horse let go, dinky was screaming. Her hand was bleeding, and It was swelling. I called a cab. We got to the hospital at 4.10pm. Went to X-ray at 5, got back from X-ray at 6 got seen by the doc at 7. Luckily it wasn't broken,they redressed the wound, gave her antibiotics, and warned of the dangers of getting it wet as the risk of infection given that it was an animal bite that broke the skin.
B called as we left the hospital. Apparently I shouldn't send dinky to school tomorrow, to give her a chance to rest. Seriously does she not think I can make ANY decisions for myself? Honestly! Her kid has a 60% attendance rate and the only reason they are not reviewing the circumstances is because her daughter is not 5, therefore not compulsory school age yet.
Dinky spent the whole time waiting for X-ray and waiting for the doc messing about and causing mayhem. A couple of times she caught her hand on something, and stopped for maybe 10 seconds but was straight back in there. No broken bones, able to play = able to go to school! She has antibiotics, and calpol, she will be fine. If she isn't, she can come home.
I phoned my dad to let him know about dinky's accident. He agreed with me, she'll be ok to go to school and the school will phone if she isn't.
So we will see how she gets on tomorrow!
No appointment tomorrow so all good.... Still waiting on post or phone calls for everything else!
So dinky was up at 4.30am courtesy of our noisy neighbour downstairs. She was dressed and breakfasted at 6.30am. Got to school at 8.20, did the phonics and off I went.
I got a phone call from B again telling me what I ought to do while I apply for jobs, so much so my new response to her when she goes off on one "ah huh, yep, good idea, yeah I will look into it" and repeat!
Got home, tidied up and cleaned the floor, waited for the mind advocate to discuss my issues with the mental health nurse. She was really nice and she asked me to go through our appointments chronologically and tell her any little comments or anything that made me uncomfortable and we would discard anything that we agree is not really a big issue. When I told her some of the stuff S had said S was very inappropriate and I had every right to feel aggrieved. I told her how she can be very contradictory in what she says, I gave 3 examples, apparently there is no wonder I get confused by the mixed messages. The advocate asked me about my care plan. My response "what care plan?", according to he the advocate I'm supposed to be involved in my care and treatment. That's a laugh!
She ran through the options. I could:
Talk to her in the appointment for tomorrow at 9.30am but work on bullet points with the advocate
Rearrange the appointment and have the advocate present
Cancel the appointment and try to change mental health nurse without advocates help
Cancel the appointment and try to change mental health nurse with advocates help
Make a formal complaint
I opted for cancel appointment and change mental health nurse with advocates help, without making a formal complaint.
So after the major confusion as to which office S actually answers to out of the two offices she is attached to, we manage to cancel the appointment and ask how to go about changing nurses. I have to write a letter to the manager of the nurse practitioners. So we worked out exactly what to say, the advocate is going to type it up and bring it round for me to sign tomorrow. Normally I'd do it myself, but I have enough to deal with. It's different, to let someone else help, odd and uncomfortable, but it is one less thing for me to have to deal with. The advocate even gave her number to the CMHT. S phoned and left a message on the advocates phone. She is going to fob S off until the paper work goes in to change nurses. Awkward and severely uncomfortable situation avoided!
Went to get dinky from school. On the way home we get some carrots to feed the horse she rode on Sunday and the other horse in the field. I broke the carrots up and dinky fed the horses. All was well until the white horse sniffed dinky's hand and chomped hard. I heard a pop and dinky scream I instantly tried to grab dinky's hand but the horse wouldn't let go. I instinctively tapped it on the nose and shouted "OFF!". The horse let go, dinky was screaming. Her hand was bleeding, and It was swelling. I called a cab. We got to the hospital at 4.10pm. Went to X-ray at 5, got back from X-ray at 6 got seen by the doc at 7. Luckily it wasn't broken,they redressed the wound, gave her antibiotics, and warned of the dangers of getting it wet as the risk of infection given that it was an animal bite that broke the skin.
B called as we left the hospital. Apparently I shouldn't send dinky to school tomorrow, to give her a chance to rest. Seriously does she not think I can make ANY decisions for myself? Honestly! Her kid has a 60% attendance rate and the only reason they are not reviewing the circumstances is because her daughter is not 5, therefore not compulsory school age yet.
Dinky spent the whole time waiting for X-ray and waiting for the doc messing about and causing mayhem. A couple of times she caught her hand on something, and stopped for maybe 10 seconds but was straight back in there. No broken bones, able to play = able to go to school! She has antibiotics, and calpol, she will be fine. If she isn't, she can come home.
I phoned my dad to let him know about dinky's accident. He agreed with me, she'll be ok to go to school and the school will phone if she isn't.
So we will see how she gets on tomorrow!
No appointment tomorrow so all good.... Still waiting on post or phone calls for everything else!
Monday, 7 January 2013
So today was the breast clinic appointment.
After taking dinky to school, trying to get her to do her phonics without causing a major disruption from her ultra sulk, pulling her away from the door so people could get in and out, and leaving her with mrs C (which dinky was not impressed with as she normally has mrs H as her TA) in floods of tears, I set off for breakfast. I met with my friend B who has done all this before but she didn't remember that I had the appointment today. After yesterday, her telling me to search all the places to get a job, I couldn't be bothered to remind her. I ate my breakfast in silence while she went off on one telling me where I should be looking for work and what I should be doing with my life.
After I got the bus to town and walked up to the hospital. I started to feel a little anxious about the examination and had to get my book out to distract myself but my heart wasn't in it. I was taken in to see the doc pretty quickly. For the life of me I could work out why they had a separate changing room, seeing as she was about to have her hands all over my breasts, I didn't see why they couldn't see me get undressed. So I came out and she asked me where the lump was and felt it her self, she spend a good 5 minutes checking every cm of the breasts. I had to block out the intrusive memories, but it was better than flashbacks. I got dressed, she asked my medical history and if there was cancer in the family. She told me she couldn't work out what it was but ran through the list of what it could be.
Lymph node- maybe
Fibro something or other- possibly
Cancer- unlikely but can't rule it out
She didn't think it was a cyst because the shape was wrong. It wasn't circular, or smooth.
Apparently because of Christmas and new year the ultrasound department were only taking follow ups and mammogram discrepancies. So I would get an appointment for a scan in the next couple of weeks and she was going to ask for a biopsy so they can be sure the diagnosis is correct. I preferred not knowing the next bit, "they will have to give you local anaesthetic to the breast because it is quite a wide needle to get what they need". Now I'm not scared of needles and biopsy could have meant small needle or big needle, there was no need to squash the hope it was a small one!
And that was that. 10 minutes.
So a letter should come in the post. So that is something else to look out for.
Bidding day today, 2 houses in the wrong areas so wait another week to see if something comes up.
No news on anything else that I am waiting for.
The mind advocate will be here at 11.30 tomorrow to discuss my options with the nurse. My appointment with the nurse is on Wednesday so we will see how that goes. I'm really not up for a fight on this one. I've been irritable enough lately without having a discussion about considering other peoples feeling with a nurse who's job it is to help people. I get the feeling she is from a nice middle class family who expected her to go to uni and she decided to do nursing as it is a good profession to get into. Mental health nursing doesn't require getting your hands dirty so here she is. She doesn't seem all that experienced, she had to look up antidepressants in the medicine book. If she was experienced you would think she would know her antidepressant drugs being a mental health nurse.
So this week is going to be one of those weeks!
More job hunting to keep me busy and I stop smoking from tomorrow!
Wish me luck! :)
After I got the bus to town and walked up to the hospital. I started to feel a little anxious about the examination and had to get my book out to distract myself but my heart wasn't in it. I was taken in to see the doc pretty quickly. For the life of me I could work out why they had a separate changing room, seeing as she was about to have her hands all over my breasts, I didn't see why they couldn't see me get undressed. So I came out and she asked me where the lump was and felt it her self, she spend a good 5 minutes checking every cm of the breasts. I had to block out the intrusive memories, but it was better than flashbacks. I got dressed, she asked my medical history and if there was cancer in the family. She told me she couldn't work out what it was but ran through the list of what it could be.
Lymph node- maybe
Fibro something or other- possibly
Cancer- unlikely but can't rule it out
She didn't think it was a cyst because the shape was wrong. It wasn't circular, or smooth.
Apparently because of Christmas and new year the ultrasound department were only taking follow ups and mammogram discrepancies. So I would get an appointment for a scan in the next couple of weeks and she was going to ask for a biopsy so they can be sure the diagnosis is correct. I preferred not knowing the next bit, "they will have to give you local anaesthetic to the breast because it is quite a wide needle to get what they need". Now I'm not scared of needles and biopsy could have meant small needle or big needle, there was no need to squash the hope it was a small one!
And that was that. 10 minutes.
So a letter should come in the post. So that is something else to look out for.
Bidding day today, 2 houses in the wrong areas so wait another week to see if something comes up.
No news on anything else that I am waiting for.
The mind advocate will be here at 11.30 tomorrow to discuss my options with the nurse. My appointment with the nurse is on Wednesday so we will see how that goes. I'm really not up for a fight on this one. I've been irritable enough lately without having a discussion about considering other peoples feeling with a nurse who's job it is to help people. I get the feeling she is from a nice middle class family who expected her to go to uni and she decided to do nursing as it is a good profession to get into. Mental health nursing doesn't require getting your hands dirty so here she is. She doesn't seem all that experienced, she had to look up antidepressants in the medicine book. If she was experienced you would think she would know her antidepressant drugs being a mental health nurse.
So this week is going to be one of those weeks!
More job hunting to keep me busy and I stop smoking from tomorrow!
Wish me luck! :)
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