Monday 9 April 2012

31 weeks ~ a frustrating day


I had a midwife appointment at the local GPs, just routine and everything was fine with baby and me.  I queried about starting Vitamin K supplements as it had been requested by the first consultant I had seen at Epsom and was meant to start from 32weeks.  The midwife didn’t know anything about vitamin K and when she asked the GP he seemed a bit vague too.  From what I had read it was to help with blood clotting in both mother and baby at work as there was some evidence that epilepsy medication can put you more at risk of bleeding.  But reading on it seemed to suggest that it was only enzyme inducing epilepsy medications that there was any evidence that this was the case and as Lamotrigine isn’t enzyme inducing it didn’t seem so crucial that I push for it.  They said to come back in a couple of days to pick up my prescription.

A few days later I had organised with my sister to go up to London to get my Lamotrigine levels re-tested as the consultant had asked me too.  I had rung her secretary a week or so before to ask if I could have a blood form and as it hadn’t turned up in the post presumed it would be at reception at the hospital.

It was a horrible day, when we left home it was drizzling and we first went to the doctors to get my vitamin k prescription, by which point we were soggy to say the least, and it wasn’t there…  I had to wait half an hour to see a doctor who said he didn’t know anything about vitamin k and had been trying to get hold of a consultant or midwife at Epsom Hospital to find out exactly what needed to be prescribed and the dose which seemed fair enough.  But I said I would give the hospital a ring myself to see if I could get anywhere.

So off to London we went, and when we arrived at the hospital they couldn’t find a blood test request form for me, after waiting around for quite a while and lots of people looking blank as to what to do in the end a porter at the hospital said “why don’t you call the epilepsy nurse?” just shows the little people quite often have the best ideas.  Eventually the epilepsy nurse came down and gave me the request sheet and apologised for keeping me waiting.  Funny thing is about 2 weeks later the blood request form turned up in the post with a big red stamp on it from Royal Mail saying postage not paid, even though it had a stamp on so it wasn’t really the hospitals fault, more the postal system…

So after sorting out the bloods, Nikki and me went for a lovely lunch and then to the foundling museum.  It was really good to spend some sisterly time together.  We were very close anyway, I see her more as a friend than as a sister, but it’s always nice to go out and do something just the 2 of us.  On the way home we stopped at the library to sort out my bus pass… some of the few perks of having epilepsy is you are eligible for a disabled rail card (giving you and a “carer” 1/3 off), free bus pass and a prescription charge exemption certificate.  It turned out nothing was going to be straight forward that day and they weren’t able to change my address and surname on the bus pass at the same time and when they tried they reset the whole thing so I had to give them all the information again and they weren’t sure if it would work, they wrote a note and sent copies of all my information off to the head office and said wait 2 weeks and if it doesn’t turn up ring them.  But on a day where everything had been a fight I half expected it never to turn up, I was wrong though, it did turn up all be it without my surname changed but it doesn’t really matter no bus driver will ever know.  I felt like I had dragged my poor sister around all day trying to sort out all my medical problems and although I loved spending time with her I felt bad that we had only got a chance to spend a small amount of the day doing interesting things, I went home feeling a little down, like I’d had to fight for everything all day.

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