My turn to moan...

* warning* - if you are at all squeamish or of a nervous disposition I suggest you stop reading now!

well progress on Willow's potty training hasn't been great - what I have discovered though is - if I leave her running around with a bare bum, she'll quite merrily go sit on the potty or ask for the toilet EVERY time she needs to pee or poo (usually about every 10 minutes. But if I put her in pants either with or without a tena pad then she'll be dirty and wet within 15 minutes, even though I ask her every few minutes if she needs to go. She'll even deny it when she has poo and pee running down the inside of her legs. She's the same with a nappy. So I'm not sure what's going on there - she seems to be aware of when she needs to go, but just doesn't bother if she has to remove clothes to do it. 

So I have emailed Willow's consultant's secretary to ask about the professional help he was on about, and have also mentioned it to my Health Visitor (I just think my new HV is ace) I also asked the HV if I could change my nappy order and stop the nappies altogether - we're not going to get anywhere with the potty training if I keep putting a nappy on her. So she's going to order me a few different pads to see how we get on.

For those of you who don't know, Willow was born with a condition called Imperforate Anus - to cut a long story short she was given a colostomy at a day old and it was reversed at 10 months old, she has also had a few other major ops in between.

We eventualy managed to get help to perform bowel washouts on her via social work. The help with the bowel washouts didn't start last week - but they were put in place to start this week. So we have had a lady out from Crossroads on Monday and Wednesday evening and she's very good with Willow. She restrains Willow while Graham or I perform the procedure, then she chats away to her while she sits on the toilet or potty afterwards. So we have one lady who does a Monday and Wednesday night, and a different lady who comes on a Friday evening - we haven't met her yet, but her boss tells me she's a bit of a softie and thinks she might get upset!!

I had to phone the surgical ward this morning though, as when I changed her nappy first thing this morning there was a bit of blood in it - just a small amount, and it was fresh blood. 

Anyway, after explaining it to a receptionist, a staff nurse, and finally to a junior doctor (as well as having to go through her history, the reason she was getting washouts, why we had stopped them, when we had stopped them, why we had started again, what we'd been doing in the meantime - dunno why they didn't ask if I picked my nose while they were at it) anyway, I got the standard - "just monitor it, if it happens again or gets worse then contact your GP" so I told them, that if it got worse I would be presenting her at A&E, not phoning a GP. I asked the junior doc if she could make Willow's consultant aware of what had happened - she told me, if she could get time with him she would as "he's a very busy man" - so I told her that I wanted her to make a point of telling him, so that he's aware of it long before I see him again in May, and just in case this does develop into a bigger issue.