Not One of My Best Days!!!

I have been on phase-return back at work, so was able to use this afternoon to have my annual boiler serviced by British Gas. I knew that it would be bad news one day, and today was the day – the engineer condemned the boiler. The flue had rusted through and was fragmented holes. It was switched off permanently. Even though I detest this heatwave, I suppose I am lucky this has happened now, as I certainly don't have the money for a new boiler. I felt really down in the dumps when the engineer left the house and the afternoon only got worse.

I called my mother to chat about something and she informed me that she had scraped her leg on a buddleia stump and she had a 'bad gash' and that it had 'poured with blood' and filled her shoe! This all happened in the middle of the Sainsbury's shopping being delivered, which had obviously stressed Vivien out to the max! To add to that, mother's leg was leaking fluid badly. I had called the District Nurses to attend last Friday because of mother's oedematous legs and they were due to visit mother on Monday and they didn't turn up (however, when I phoned this afternoon to ask why, they said they had visited in the morning and knocked on the door loudly and had no reply – yeah right! Vivien was there and is not deaf!!!) Vivien phoned for them to visit today and they came out to bandage mother's leg and said they would come out again on Friday. Later on Vivien said the bandages were soaked with fluid, so I phoned Hunstanton Surgery for advice and a message came back from a GP that 'they had not got capacity to see mother today' and to ring the District Nurses – so this I did and was told they would visit again this evening.

I drove to Holme to wait with Vivien and mother for the district nurse to arrive and to discuss why my mother's legs were leaking so badly etc and guess what? We waited until 8.30pm (the  latest they can turn up we were told by the surgery) and they didn't turn up!!! I am fuming to say the least! Hence to say their day will start badly when I ring up at 8am!!! Ok, so obviously they are extremely busy, but they could have least of rung up to say they were not coming out!😡 Wasted my time and petrol, very stressed and feel utter despair this evening.

Phoning 111 is a very long and lengthy process, involving repeating yourself approximatley four times after speaking to a receptionist, nurse, then another nurse and then finally a doctor – I didn't have time or energy for this so cheekily phoned my ward for advice – massive thanks to a couple of lovely colleagues (T. & A.) on my ward, who recommended not to remove the soaked bandages as the leg would be at risk of infection if it was uncovered and to wrap the bandages in towels to help soak up the fluid. Mother's bed will be soaked in the morning #washingmachineonallday – I recommended that Vivien ring the surgery at 8am and demand an emergency appointment. If I had known the nurse was not going to be bother turning up this evening, I would have purchased bandages myself to get mother through the night – a poor service, resulting in Vivien and mother having a bad night ahead of them.