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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