good visit with my friend but we had a big drama

well i am just home from seeing my friend. it was good, we had fun. we chatted, got take away food, and generally enjoyed ourselves. until about 7:30 when our nice afternoon was shattered. my friend has a couple of pa’s because she has some multiple disabilities, not just blindness, and she needs help with meds, and showering, getting to bed etc. so her pa was meant to come from 8 PM until 10 PM tonight. so at 7:30 PM this pa rings her and says sorry but i cant come. my husband is in hospital. now ok he was sick. but he’d been there all day. and it is the pa’s job to sort out cover for her clients…not leave them stranded. so she’s like i dont know what to do. what do you want me to do? this sorta thing had never happened to norma before. the pa was like well i rang two of your other pa’s and they arent answering their phones. norma wasnt sure what to do so i told her to call the out of hours service. which she did, but the guy who answered the phone was useless. she gave him her name and told him what the problem was. he started listing off relief pa’s who dont even work with norma any longer, they used to in the past. clearly they were never taken off the list of people to call in a crisis. so anyway finally they get a pa that does work with her, and luckily when he tried her phone she was in and she answered and she was able to come over to cover norma’s hours. if she hadnt been able to cover i dont know what would have happened. norma cant take her own meds, and she has a special sleep system that needs to be asembled so she would not have been able to get into bed on her own. norma rang the original pa back the one who was supposed to be coming, and she told her that it wasnt acceptable, that she could have given a little more notice. and you know what this girl said to her? well norma my husband didnt plan on getting sick. no, he didnt, but when he did, you should have had a back up plan, lady! not made out like it was norma’s fault and acted like it was a big huge thing and you had no other choice other than to abandon work to be with him. he wasnt even that sick, she only had to leave work because there was nobody to babysit the kids. she got all irritated and said to norma i have another service user after you, and i cant go to them either, and i dont know what i should do! i was flabbergasted at hearing all this, only that norma had the phone on loud speaker and so i could hear everything, i would have been like wow she said that? but she did. i think she’s in the wrong job! definitely! when norma got off the phone with her she was very stressed out. i managed to calm her down and things were ok again before i left. the pa who was covering had arrived before i left. i felt better knowing that. i didnt want to leave her on her own. i would have stayed longer if i had too. pa’s like that make my blood boil. honestly, they have no respect for their service users. i mean ok i know her husband was ill. i’m not saying he shouldnt have been ill. my point is this. when he got ill she should have organised cover for norma, knowing what she knows, that norma is depending on a pa to go in and help her get ready for bed and take her meds. not just anyone can go in to her because most of the pa’s arent trained in medication management. and most of them arent trained up in how to use her sleep system either. it was this girls job to at least be respectful and arrange for someone else to see to normas needs. not give norma an earful and make out like it was all her fault and she was in the wrong for challenging her on it.
carol anne

Author: Carol anne

I am in my mid 40's. I'm blind and I have dissociative identity disorder, I also have complex PTSD. I blog about my life with these disorders. I live in Ireland. View all posts by Carol anne