DF's very important hospital appointment!

[OldBeanbagz]

After nearly 12 months waiting for a referral for specialist care, my dad has finally got his appointment through BUT it's on the very same i'm supposed to be going on holiday

It's in my local hospital and i'd always planned on taking/going with them to the appointment.

My options are...

1. Persuade DH/DC to leave a day later as we haven't booked the ferry yet but it means we all lose a day of our holidays (which is only a week long).

1. DH takes the kids on the ferry and i fly to join them later the same day. I should be able to just about do this if the appointment doesn't run over.

1. Leave my parents to it though my DM is always rather vague when it comes to reporting back on appointments.

Go that evening after the appointment?

Go to the appointment. As someone who went throughout the whole rigmarole of NHS elderly care with my Dad, you need to be there. To be his advocate and push for the whole situation to be made clear. My parents would often minimise issues with Dad as they didn't want to cause a fuss. Does this ring a bell?

Talk to your dh about what he thinks would work best. Evening ferry, next day, fly out on your own. You haven't got the ferry booked so its a good thing that you can be flexible.

I am regularly in this position with elderly forgetful parents and the fact that if you cancel NHS appointments, the wait list for a different one is the same again. Go to the appointment. Personally I tend to catch my family up and enjoy the "me" time in the process. Occassionally this has been quite stressful - the last eurostar of the evening and a connection at a random french train station in the wee hours one of them! But def go to the appointment.

Our area is maybe different from yours, but when that happened to us I rang the consultant's secretary and dm was offered an alternative date a fortnight later. Admittedly I still can't believe that actually worked. It's probably worth a try, but if (when) that doesn't work then unfortunately I think you definitely need to go to the appt. I'd send the family on ahead, and make my own way afterwards.

Go to appointment and follow family the next day or whatever. Had similar recently. My DH handled dc wonderfully and we got on with hols when we met up again. But my parent needed me for that appointment

Thanks all, i'm convinced i need to go to the appointment with them.

basketofshells I don't think my parents will want to delay the appointment having waited this long but i might ask them to se if they can ring to get it brought forward.

Will speak to Dh when he gets back from working away tomorrow and look into flights. He'll have to pick me up from the airport at the other end as there's no direct transport to where we're staying.