Had her first outing with new carer at the new 2 hour Tuesday evening slot, they went to little local authority run 'leisure lounge', which is just a tiny little gym with a sauna, a steam room, a jacuzzi and little cafe upstairs from the local swimming pool. She was very enthusiastic about it, so was new carer, so that looks like a win win situation!
But getting to this more peaceful place has been a long haul. Added to the crisis created by the unnecessary changes made to Sarah's care package two or three weeks ago, her regular carer suddenly became unavailable which intensified the last few days of her anguish. Put simply, she's been bloody difficult, and the new problem rendered her inclined to throw her weight about, physically as well as metaphorically!
The regular carers absence for an undisclosed time and reason is a bit of a nuisance to say the least, Sarah is very fond of her and has always shied away from anyone taking her place. I thought I had made it clear that it was no good sending someone she doesn't know, she won't go out with them, just cancel the appointment, so to speak. So I'm now more than a little bit concerned about the competence of the service provider. Nobody from there bothered to tell us that the usual carer wouldn't be calling for Sarah. They sent someone neither us nor Sarah had ever met, and she arrived not at the appointed time but two hours earlier, thus, adding insult to injury. Had they bothered to ring up and tell me the usual carer was unavailable and they intended to send someone else there would have been the opportunity to say again don't bother, she won't want to go out with anyone else, don't waste your time, but no, they send the poor woman they are hoping will be taking her out on a Tuesday night, who was to be introduced to Sarah by the current but suddenly unavailable carer whom Sarah trusts.
Needless to say her arrival was not met with whoops of joy from Sarah, in fact, you remember the black hole I was talking about earlier? We were pretty close to it, let me tell you! The poor woman from the service provider was distraught, she was just doing as she was told, what she hadn't been told was that Sarah was autistic and had some specific needs, she'd just been told to turn up and take her out. As I have said before, what do I know.. I'll tell you what I know, incompetence when I see it!
So there we were two Thursdays ago with a very volatile Sarah, and absolutely nothing we could say or do to put things right for her, and again, it was the result of so called professional input! I spent the rest of that afternoon on the telephone making my feeling known to the people who should have known better and warning others that they were in for a rocky ride.
Friday came, Sarah went to day centre in a very nasty frame of mind, and I was actually feeling quite sorry for her Care Manager who was making her way up the valley to have a 'little chat' with Sarah to try and explain things to her at the day centre that afternoon, she has to explain also that the woman who turned up on Thursday is the very woman who will be taking her out on Tuesday evening and she really is a very nice lady, personally, I thought she may have been onto a loser there, I was also hoping the first aid box was well stocked. On the upside, I was thinking that this could actually remind those who need to be reminded that we've not heard from psychology yet, and this would be a good time for a bit of input from that direction.
Either way, all this is happening somewhere else, I'm staying out of it. I had something else to do on Friday, which was a great disappointment to me as it happened, or rather didn't happen, but that is another blog on an entirely different subject which I will come back to later when it starts to make a bit more sense than it does at the moment.
Back to the object of this blog, Sarah's meeting with care manager was not entirely successful but no injuries were inflicted and another meeting with the care manager is set up for Tuesday afternoon with Sarah, 'just to make sure'. What she is making sure of is unclear as Sarah was still not a happy bunny when she got home on Friday evening, although calmer. Sanctions were still in place because of the challenging behavior, so we don't go out over the weekend, which was actually pretty calm, all things considered.
Here is the bit nobody believes, even I have difficulty with it, there was a full moon last weekend, once it started waning Sarah calmed down, this happens every month, she has always been susceptible to going over the top during the second quarter of a waxing moon, her father is the same. Monday she was fine, Tuesday she was a little confused by care manger telling her the same stuff she told her on Friday, but, as I said at the beginning, went off happily with new carer in the evening and they both came back happy. Sarah also says she is happy to go out with new carer on Thursday. So crisis over, lets make the most of the cheerful Sarah until some fool tries to change things again and the blasted moon intervenes!
Hopefully the people that need to know, now really do know that you shouldn't spring surprises on people who can't cope with them, and in conclusion, is there anybody out there who can give me some sort of sensible reason why the moon effects some people and not others, and how the hell is it that I have the misfortune to be spending my life with two people who are most definitely under it's influence....
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