My dad has had diabetes for about 10 years now. However, late Monday night something happened that has never happend before. And it was scary as hell.

Just after midnight Monday, he was already in bed, myself and my mum were just getting ready to go when we went to say night to him.

However, he wasn’t feeling right so we decided to stay up with him. 10 minutes later, came the sound of what we at first thought was snoring. But then after looking over at him, his eyes were open.

He wasn’t responding to us properly, he couldn’t talk, he was just lying there, breathing like he was snoring and completely out of it.

Paramedics arrived about 5 minutes after calling the emergency doctor. The wonderful paramedics who almost as soon as seeing him and being made aware that he was diabetic said they thought he was going into a diabetic comer. They checked his BM level to find it was 1.4 (anything below 4 is not good at all).

They quickly injected him with glucose and some other magic potions and withim 10 minutes he was out of it, talking normally and communicating again. Thank god.

Now, looking back we are amazed that (both my parents are diabetic) we have never been told about how to spot the signs of slipping in to a DC. We know now though.

The paramedics were concerned at his low blood pressure and hi BM was not stabilising as well as it should have been so they decided hospital was the best option. The next 6/7 hours that myself and my mum spent sat in the cold, uncomfortable A&E waiting room in the middle of the night were not fun. But then, we were much better of than my dad. We were finally let in to see him just as the sun was coming up, by which time we were shattered but pleased to see him looking a lot better than the last time we saw him.

Of course, moving to where we have means that Stoke Mandeville is very local to us. Stoke being the hospital (the spinal injuries unit, to be precise) where my dad spent around 16 months after being made paralysed.

When deciding that he needed to stay in for a few days to monitor this and also try and help with a few other health problems he has been experiencing he was pleased when they told him he would be going back into the SIU. The staff are great in the unit, just for the fact that they get to know the patients needs very quickly.

It doesn’t half annoy my dad, and rightly so I feel, when a clueless doctor in a normal ward asks him to turn over, or sit up or lift or move a leg. All things he cannot do too easily without help/aids… especially the lift a leg bit…. you know, with him being a double amputee paraplegic… and yes, he has been asked to do those things by thoughtless hospital staff. Even 7/8 years on, it can be quite hurtful.

So, he is in hospital now with various operations and CT scans scheduled to see if they can get to the bottom of some recent health problems, which could all be linked. Hopefully it will be a simple fix, they will give him a good old ‘MOT’ and he will be back home with us at the beginning of next week fighting fit and ready to enjoy the first Christmas in our new house. Fingers crossed.

I can’t believe that last time I posted on here was November. Christmas seems like so long ago let alone November.

I would love to be writing more on here but I just don’t have the time. It is now March. In less than two months my dissertation needs to be in, in less than 3 months I will be done with uni for a second time. My dissertation is steaming along, not as fast as I might like it to be but it is getting there. It is a marked improvement on my Derby dissertation though, just for a fact that I didn’t start writing that one until the week before it had to be in. I know… bloody students!

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I came home tonight from work by two three nice things and one not so nice.

Nice thing #1: A nice, but healthy tea.

Nice thing #2: A bottle of Stella (not so healthy but nice after a days work).

Nice thing #3: My sister was home from a weekend away staying at her boyfriends. Don’t tell her I miss her, but I do… sometimes. And she likes my new curly hair… Oh, btw, I have new curly hair, and its lovely and sexy… yey!

Not so nice thing: I came home in the middle of an argument between my dad and sister. As always it’s about the usual stuff about my dad treating us all like crap. It didn’t last long but it’s still not nice coming home to it.

Why my dad thinks shouting at people is going to get them to do things for him is beyond me. Well, we will still do the things for him (we aren’t evil after all, whatever he may tell you) but its just nicer to be asked in a nice, polite way rather than being treated like you are a naughty 10 year old.

He keeps saying that we don’t know what its like, that we can’t understand how he is feeling. I know this is true. After all, I can walk, I can go to the toilet by myself… but that still doesn’t give him the right to treat us like shit.

If I could swap places with him, I would… without a second though because me and my dad are different. I wouldn’t have given up. I wouldn’t have let my upper body get so weak that he can’t transfer himself. I may have been paralysed, but I wouldn’t have let it beat me – at least I like to think I wouldn’t but again, you don’t really know until it happens to you.

I love my dad, more than he probably realises. I just can’t take much more of the bickering.

This post is extremely personal and you may not want to read it, so if you don’t like personal posts just don’t read.

And its long, so if you are going to read I suggest you go make yourself a cup of tea.

I have warned you…
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Some of you that have read this blog for a long while or know about what has happened concerning my dad over the last few years might like to hear a bit of an update on the whole situation.

For those of you that don’t know whats happened I will squash it down into a paragraph. If you want to know more feel free to ask, its my life now so I don’t mind talking about it but I won’t offer the information directly to people without being asked, so…

Early in 2002 my dad went into hospital to have an operation on his foot. While there he got MRSA. For time afterwards he was complaining about back pain but the doctors just kept giving him morphine and didn’t investigate why he was getting the pain. 3 months later he was left paralysed from the chest down because the MRSA was left to spread into his spine. He has spent the best part of the last three years in and out of hospital. Needless to say it is hard for him to have to come to terms with.

Something neither he nor my mum know was that this was the main reason why I only got a ‘pass’ for my last degree. When the MRSA paralysed him was when I was due to hand in my dissertation. When my mum rang to tell me what had happened I just dropped everything including my dissertation and went home. It never got handed in and I received a pass.

So since then we have been going through the very lenghtly process of compensation based on negligence. My dad is currently living in the once dining room at our house. He can only just get through the doors in his wheelchair and he basically has a very low quality of life because our house just cannot accommodate his needs. Hopefully any compensation that is awarded to him will help to improve this. He was the major earner in the house and for a while it was tough going to try and survive without it.
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I went to a wedding on saturday.. was the usual affair and was very enjoyable but wanted to share one of the songs with you that we had to sing in the church. The groom (my cousin) especialy requested it…

If I had a hammer…

If I had a hammer
I’d hammer in the morning
I’d hammer in the evening … all over this land,
I’d hammer out danger
I’d hammer out a warning
I’d hammer out love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.

If I had a bell
I’d ring it in the morning
I’d ring it in the evening … all over this land,
I’d ring out danger
I’d ring out a warning
I’d ring out love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.

If I had a song
I’d sing it in the morning
I’d sing it in the evening … all over this world,
I’d sing out danger
I’d sing out a warning
I’d sing out love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.

If I’ve got a hammer
And I’ve got a bell
And I’ve got a song to sing … all over this land,
It’s a hammer of justice
It’s a bell of freedom
It’s a song about love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land.

I liked it cos its different to the normal Hymns that you are made to sing at these things so thought I would share it with you.

Finally, today after many months of waiting my dad received a letter from his solicitor about his clinical negligence claim.

They have received the report back from the independent specialist and to cut the 20 pages of words down.. he has basically finalised that if the doctors at various hospitals and his GP had listened to him when he said he was having back pain and actually investigated why this was rather than just giving him morphine then the paralysis would have been prevented.

This is of course very welcome news to him. This specialists report was what our whole case was hanging on and thankfully he has came to a conclusion in our favour.

I don’t see how the various hospitals (one of which by the way has recently been named the worst in the country) can now get out of this. My dads back pain started in the March of 2002 and he became paralysed in the June. the had four months to treat him on his numerous visits to the GP and hospitals but they didn’t. We actually have an entry in his hospital notes that says:

“patient is being overly demanding complaining of supposed back pains and requesting to see specialist – given pain killers to keep him happy.”

It could still be quite a while before he recieves anything regarding compensation, but it is at least a start.

I am sure that my dad is trying to make my last two weeks here as horrible as possible. Putting the guilt trip on me, having me run round after him, ordering me about, telling me what he wants doing before I go and starting arguments over the smallest of things.

Tonight’s classic argument was because he has been wanting to sell a one for all remote control on eBay. We have had it for around 6 months but he has decided he wants to sell it because it uses batteries too quick. He asked me if I knew where the box was for it and I didn’t. As far as I knew it had been chucked out as I couldn’t remember seeing it since it came.

He went off on one. Ranting and raving that none of his stuff is safe and every time he closes his eyes something gets moved or chucked out.

My sister came down to see what was going on and he started shouting that I wouldn’t admit to chucking it out and that I was being childish trying to pass the blame by not owning up to it.

My sister walked into the room where his computer is, went into HIS computer cupboard and pulled it out. It was where HE has asked her to put it the six months ago.

My sister then had a go at him and told him to apologize to me. I didn’t really want an apology over a cardboard box… I just couldn’t believe he was making this much fuss over a little box. He was acting as if something valuable had been chucked away.

So now we are all sitting here in an icy silence, oh what fun!

I often get woken up in the morning by the daily visit from one of my dads nurses coming to change his dressings. They bundle through the house making all the noise they can. My dad has asked them very poilitly not to slam the front door when they come in but every time they do.

This morning was the same. With my dads room being directly below mine aswell it pretty much means I have little chance of going back to sleep.

I was laying in bed this morning half listening to what they were talking about and half wondering whether to try going back to sleep or to just get up.
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One of our cats, Poppy was one years old yesterday!

Awww! Isn’t she growing up fast, its seems like only yesterday we bought her home.

She got a lovely birthday present… A trip to the vets to get spayed! hehe…