Flying Solo For a While

Hey guys, just thought I’d do a quick post to update you on a new situation in our home. I mentioned recently that my partner was going to be admitted to hospital again soon. This is so he can get further treatment for his OCD. I’ve been very happy with his current prescribed medications, but the psych feels that he needs to be admitted quite urgently. As far as we know, the plan is for my man to go on Tuesday, that could change slightly, depending on what’s available. I’ll talk in more detail about this a little further down the track. At the moment, the past few months in regards to his illness have been far too raw for me to write about at length, and I feel that I’d be more comfortable doing this once there’s some distance behind it.

Whilst he’s in hospital, he’ll be exposed to things which make him anxious, and taught techniques to help him to learn how to deal with this. They’ll also tweak his medication, which is great news for us, because it means it can happen much more quickly if he has medical supervision and observation.

In the last weeks of December last year, we found out that this would be happening. The situation in our household had reached crisis point, and I was looking forward to him getting treatment I could see he needed, plus, if I’m honest, I was looking forward to a break from the demands his illness places on me. I know that sounds awful, but that’s how out of hand things were becoming.

How naive was I? A couple of weeks ago, I sent him to hospital in an ambulance for a seizure he had at home, and he stayed a few days. Oh my god! It was anything but a break. I forgot how much the kids play up when he’s gone. I forgot how busy it all gets, all of it. So it’s fair to say that I’m nervous about how the two little ones are going to cope, and in turn, how I’ll cope with them. Of course, I know I’ll get through it, there’s no question about that at all. I’m just trying to be a little more prepared this time.

I’m eternally grateful to my carer support worker. She is my sounding board, she helps me to come up with strategies to help things function better around here and most importantly, when I’m doubting if I’m saying the right things to my partner when he’s not doing great, she helps to tell me if she thinks I’m doing well, and if not, has brilliant suggestions on how I could approach tricky situations better next time. She’s stepped right up to the plate on hearing about this hospital admission, and is prepared to help ensure that I get any respite support I need. Bless her! And the respite workers.

In time, I’m going to have a lot to say about helping children through situations like this, and hopefully it can be of help to someone else out there. I’m going to try to keep writing as much as I can, but I also know that I’m going to be incredibly busy here at home. The difference between this hospital stay and the last one is that this time, he’s being admitted indefinitely. I’ve never hated that word so much in my life as I do right now. To quote the guy who is overseeing his booking, ‘however long it takes’ is what we can expect. I think that’s what I am struggling with most, here. I feel as though that’s going to make it harder to give my kids the security of an answer, as I know they will miss him terribly.

In other news, I will be upgrading the layout of this blog during this time. I wanted to fix up the layout straight after Violet worked her magic on  my new graphics, but hey, life gets in the way sometimes. Anyway, I figured, despite how busy I’m going to be, I know I’m going to need something to fill those lonely nights, so this will be it. I’ll try to ensure that these changes disrupt the blog as little as possible in the meantime, but if it does, please just bear with me.