Hospitals...

This week's #specialsaturday theme on twitter is hospitals. We spend a lot of time in them. Thankfully not every week but I do sometimes joke that if the local ambulance trust had a loyalty card we would have accrued enough points for a hip replacement by now.

Our hospital visits fall into two categories, outpatients (which can be stressful), and emergency admissions (which are always very stressful). I've learnt to reduce the stress of outpatients in a number of ways.

Firstly, I only take him when I need to. Half the time the doctor never examines him, they just ask me questions, so I always check if I really need to bring him next time. I tell the doctor how my boy finds it stressful to come, and sometimes I leave him at home.

When I do take him, I do lots of prep. I have taken a photo of him inside the waiting room at the hospital, and I have pictures of the outside of the building from the internet. Before we even leave the house I show him the pictures and let him hold them all the way there. Since I started doing that he's been a lot calmer.

Unfortunately there's nothing I can do to make emergency admissions less stressful. These happen when he goes into status epilepticus, that is when he has a seizure lasting more than 30 minutes. Sometimes he's had really long fits lasting an hour and a half.

But I have learnt to prepare and now I know the drill. I give the medical staff the quick rundown straightaway; name, age, known medical conditions, what meds he takes and the amount, details of his last seizure, name of consultant.

Then I stand and watch while they put tubes down his nose and in his arms and wire him up to every machine they can find, and I wait to see when he will stop.