Out of hours GP services

I went to Birmingham yesterday for an EO meeting. I was supposed to catch the 18.14 train to come home but got to the station in time to get the 17.14 instead.

I thought I'd phone Theo before the train arrived to let him know what time I'd be home, he sounded awful when he answered the phone so I asked what was wrong. He told me he had a really bad headache and had been about to go down the stairs when he'd gotten really dizzy and fallen down them. This had happened at lunchtime and he hadn't bothered to tell anyone!

I told him to get straight back into bed and then I phoned my mum and asked her to go straight over. I then got on the train and spent the whole time worrying about what was happening as my phone signal always dies as soon as I get on the train.

I eventually got to speak to my mum who told me that Theo had a really high temperature and a very sore throat. She said he was fine and that he'd gone to sleep so she'd left him to it and gone home.

I finally got home at 21.40 and went straight up to check on him. He was really burning up so I made him get in the bath and gave him some paracetamol. I started asking him questions while I changed his bed and he told me he'd fallen from the very top of the stairs and hit his head several times. He said he hadn't blacked out when he fell but he was unable to get up for a few minutes and afterwards was violently shaking, seeing double and feeling sick.

I then got quite worried so I phoned the out of hours doctor. I called at 22.10 and when I explained what had happened the woman said she'd have to call an ambulance. I said I wasn't really sure that was necessary and would prefer just to talk to a doctor. I said that I would be happy to have an ambulance if the doctor thought it was necessary. She was quite insistant that she'd have to call an ambulance but eventually she gave in and said a doctor would call me as a matter of urgency.

When they still hadn't called at 00.45 I phoned back. I was again told someone would phone me which they did at 01.25.

You've got to laugh haven't you, one minute it's so urgent they're insisting on sending an ambulance and the next they're leaving you for three and a quarter hours before they call you back.

It's a good job it wasn't anything urgent!

Life since the move

Apart from the quick post about Grampy the other day I haven't been able to blog for quite a while. We moved house at the end of August and although we had the phone connected within a week of moving in, it took almost 2 months to get the internet back on. We've also been really busy trying to get the house sorted and finding new activities for Levi as we're too far from Boscombe to continue with what he was doing before.

So far things are working out really well, he joined a new Scout group which meets about 300 yards up the road. He also started gymnastics and trampolining, he hated it at first but I told him he had to give it four weeks and thankfully by the second week he was really enjoying it. We found a new music teacher to give him cornet lessons and I'm hoping to get him into a new band now that he's no longer involved with the Salvation Army or the Coda fiddle orchestra. He didn't take too kindly to the idea of not going to his church on a Sunday and reacted very badly to having to come to my church.

In fact he didn't really cope with moving at all well and life was pretty unbearable for a while. He was in a foul mood all the time and most days were taken up with trying to reassure him and deal with the almost constant meltdowns he was having. He'd got it into his head that when we moved in the house would already be decorated and all the carpets would be down. We couldn't unpack most of his things until his room was decorated as we didn't want to have to move everything again so nothing was familiar and he hated it.

Thankfully my brother gave him a TV set and a playstation 2 for his room so he was able to sit and play with it which kept him occupied most of the time. And the bishop also arranged for two brothers to come round and decorate Levi's room. My mum bought him a Liverpool duvet set and matching curtains and I got him some Liverpool posters, a football shaped Liverpool cushion and a funky football lampshade. We don't have any carpets down yet but having his room looking nice (and full of Liverpool things) has helped him feel more settled.

Now that we're in a bit more of a routine we're going to get back into a few more educational projects. We started with these cakes which he made for my mum's birthday.

Another major thing which I should probably mention, we finally had our appointment with the paediatrician. I was really freaking out about this as we had been offered a late cancellation appointment which meant I only had 48 hours notice so my head wasn't really ready for it. Thankfully I was able to phone Sandra and Ann to talk it through. In the end it was ok. The doctor seemed really nice and she gave us a provisional diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome. We now have to wait to see various other specialists for a few more in depth assessments which will give us an official diagnosis and a full picture of what his difficulties are.

More EO videos

While I was away from the internet the rest of our EO information films were put onto youtube. Theo is featured in a few of them and I think they came out really well.

Our garden

This is our lovely new garden. As you can see from the picture it was a bit overgrown so we had a lot of work to do. My mum brought the lawnmower over so we could cut the grass. We filled 5 large sacks with the grass clippings. I got my friend to come over and clear the veg patch which you can see on the right, she filled 23 large sacks with the weeds.

Levi really enjoyed pushing the lawnmower but because he's so skinny it was quite an effort for him to move it around.

As you can see apart from the overgrown veg patch the only other things in the garden are fuchsias. Hundreds and hundreds of fuchsias. I was going to take them all out but the other day I found out that fuchsias produce fruit. I found some fruit on someone else's plants the other day so we tried some. It looked like a long red grape and it tasted quite flowery, not sharp but not overly sweet either. The book I was reading says they're good for making jams and jellies.