Can't remember if I mentioned that middle child had a funny reaction after eating a chocolate with brazil nuts in before christmas? anyway we were given an appointment at the allergy clinic, but it wasnt at the local hospital, but at the Lister in stevenage which is about 30 minutes drive away on a good day and the appointment was at 9am, so i decided to leave an extra 30 minutes for the rush hour traffic and another 30 minutes for getting lost and then finding a parking space! which meant going out at 7.30am! no danger of over sleeping as middle child was so excited she bounced on me at 3 seconds past 6 - mum its time to get up. she was dressed and breakfasted within half an hour! if only every day could be like that, had a bit of trouble waking smallest child though and she ate a bit of breakfast but not much. but as i had packed plenty of snacks and drinks i wasn't worried.
managed to leave at 7.30! much to my amazement, and without forgetting anything, the girls had their DVD players on and I was being led by the satnav.
hardly any traffic and a more or less straight line meant we were there at 8.15, bags of room in the car park so no worries there. got my ticket for the windscreen - could have had 2 hours or 5, nothing in between decided to plump with 5 hours for £4, blooming lucky i did too!
got poppy into buggy, and was busy putting DVD players into boot when middle child told me smallest child had been sick, I assumed it was a little lumpy burp - no such luck she had soaked her coat, her dress, her tights, her shoes, the buggy liner and right through to the seat of the buggy where it was dripping out onto the car park!
I have an emergency box in the boot with wipes, blankets etc - but Mr.B took it out last time he had a gig and I forgot to check it was in there this morning woops! So armed with a small packet of tissues, a string bag (sometimes wish i had carrier bags in my boot like normal people) a bottle of anti bacterial gel and half a pack of flash wipes (what can I say I am anal about bugs on the steering wheel!) I set about clearing her up.
Decided on leaving her in her vest, cardigan (which the sick had missed somehow) and tights (even though they had a rather whiffy puke smell to them, but hey so did the buggy) I kind of slopped the sick onto the car park floor wiped it down the best I could and popped her back in with my coat covering her up! shoved everything in the string bag and hoped it wouldn't stink the car out too much, thank god its the winter and not a hot day!
Still loads of time to go to the loo, wash our hands and compose ourselves in a stinky, sicky kind of way and arrived 15 minutes before the appointment. very impressed with department they have a play supervisor there, with loads of good toys and a table of art things set out - the girls produced copious quantities of valentines cards!
Of course in my worry about the smell we were letting off and being aware that poppy may blow again at any time I forgot to tell them about middle childs autism! I had already chatted to her about what might happen with sctratch tests etc, and she was ok with it - but I hadn't thought that they may want to weigh her, measure her and - shock horror - take her blood pressure! that caused a wobbly moment and I had a quiet word with nurse to explain. So when we did get in to see the doc he was ready for it - and he needed to be because by this time she had got herself in a right state - and then the bombshell they had decided to do a blood test!
well middle child just went nuts thrashing around and literally screaming, I went to see the nurse when I came out and said I was worried they wouldn't get any blood from her and they were great. she called a play supervisor who came down (of course all this takes time!) she was brilliant with daughter and eventually managed to get the 'magic cream' on her hand and put the plaster on it. that takes around 50 minutes to work! but we were whisked away to her special playroom, which is an amazing unit on the children's ward full of fab toys, art stuff, books, and outside play area and even a rabbit and a guinea pig! they said they would get a peads reg down to do her bloods so she didn't need to go to pathology, and if needs be they would even do it in the playroom if it made her more at ease!
When the time came to do the tests we went to a side room with the reg, a student and the play supervisor. They had a huge story book (the sort they have in nursery schools) and held it up to read to her, all the time the reg was working on her hand behind the book - and when he finished and asked if she was ok with plasters you should have seen her face - she had no idea at all! brilliant - knock the NHS all you like, but that experience was superb!
all that took 3.5 hours though! and for all my planning of snacks etc, it was no good as no food or drink is allowed in the playroom incase there are kids waiting for surgery and there is a risk they may eat or drink some of it.
so we trotted off to asda - but this time i stunk as my jumper must have got some on it when i cuddled poppy! so we bought me a new jumper, smallest child a new outfit (pinafore, top and tights set in the sale £5!) and some new trainers for her (she had outgrow the old ones so it wasn't that bad) then went to their cafe for lunch. got the kids lunchboxes no problem, and chose a Panini for me - which the plonker doing it managed to burn 'its a little bit burnt is that ok?' err, no can I have another one that isnt burnt please?, but apparently there were none left so I asked for a refund and was told to go to customer services with my receipt -err, no again! he called the manager who asked for my receipt, I didn't have one as I paid the exact money and didn't think to ask for one! as if I was lying anyway dur! anyway got that sorted.
got home absolutely shattered at about 3.15pm had 2 bags of sicky clothes to wash and a buggy to scrub.
so there you go - thats what happens when you let a toddler sit in the backseat of a car watching a DVD and take an autistic child for a blood test!
They are testing for allergies to all nuts not just brazil
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