It was children’s A&E so a relatively small department. Ds has a concussion and I’ve had no time to myself this week as a result of him being off school and no day off so I’m running on empty. Plus my chronic pain
has been playing up.
A toddler came in with her dad and sat behind us and put Bluey on the iPad. He told her she’d need her headphones because not everybody wanted to listen to her show. Great! I thought. She said no. He turned it down a little. It was still loud. Another child came in and sat next to us who was around 5 years old and chose the noisiest toy going while mum scrolled on her phone without headphones. There was a child scrolling YouTube who was lying on the floor so he could charge his phone so his videos were audible too. Then there were the buzzers going off regularly accompanied by a faulty fire alarm that was going off every 15 minutes for 5 minutes each time for an hour and a half.
I could hear Bluey over the fire alarm
and my noise cancelling headphones. Ds was getting more and more agitated and the noise was not helping his headache from the concussion.
I asked the nurses if there was a quieter area we could wait because the noise was going to result in a meltdown. There’s a quiet room and some cubicles which weren’t being used. A sister, staff nurse and student nurse all looked at me like I’d got two heads. The sister asked me what other noise I could hear apart from the fire alarm. I guess she’s used to it although the doctor later said that she really suffers and wears ear plugs. Now I know I could have said I’m ND but I’ve not said it out loud yet and I did tell her that my son is awaiting assessment for ADHD and ASD so I would have hoped they’d understand.
We did get a quieter place to wait but I felt like it was a big ask of them and they really didn’t understand despite me explaining.
I feel very overwhelmed still after the last 3 days and my experience of asking for allowances was not a good one. I was THAT parent who thinks she can have special treatment.
I just needed a rant really but fuck me today was awful. Then when I got home I had to go and help my disabled mum who has workmen in who were drilling and god knows what for an hour so my head is fried. My ears actually hurt. Da is very disregulated bless him.
I’ve had a text asking for feedback so I might say something because staff, especially children’s HCPs should be more aware and also the department should not be a cacophony of smart phones and iPads when people are ill.
Rant over 😓