Today we had our independent assessment. This is a meeting with a psychologist to ensure that you have not been coerced or paid to donate your kidney. We had to go to the Evelina Children’s Hospital for this, so that was another hospital to add to our collection. Everyone has to wait for their appointment by reception, which is a children’s play area and really noisy, the doctor only found us on the third attempt, as she was expecting Jasmine to look really ill and have a nasogastric tube. We had to take our passports, family pictures, and Jasmine’s birth certificate. We had a nice chat in a windowless room and stopped the psychologist when she tried to give Jasmine one of the toys. We have learnt our lesson there about sharing toys in hospitals. Jasmine threw up, and the psychologist said that it was good that we didn’t make too much fuss over it. The truth is we don’t really notice now when she throws up as she does it so often.
There was an article in the Sunday Times about living kidney donation. The article made the psychological assessments sound like a very long process. However, as I am Jasmine’s father there is a clear reason for donation, and it only took 30 minutes. It seems that the psychological process is a lot more involved for altruistic donation.
Ruth has been doing dialysis for over a week now, and my hands have nearly recovered from the latest rash. I have been putting hydrocortisone cream on my hands, and taking chlorphenamine anti-histamine tablets to relieve the irritation. I’ve stopped using soap and am getting through the E45 cream.
Last week we saw the grandparents. Jasmine got some new outfits (thanks very much!), one of which has Upsy Daisy on the front. Jasmine keeps waving at Upsy Daisy and trying to peel her off the front of her top. Her other new tricks are to blow kisses at complete strangers and to take her clothes off in public. Also, she can open the tempadots we use every morning to take her temperature and she can switch both the doppler and the timer on and off. She is very good at doing her observations.
We thought we were on top of everything, but today our toilet broke. We rang up our Home Emergency Insurance cover, but having no toilet is not an emergency, so we are now using our two PhDs to research how to fix toilets on the internet. No doubt we will be phoning a plumber tomorrow. Ruth is now cheating by phoning her Dad!
Lovely pictures as always. Regarding the hands. I don’t know if it will work for you Neil, but due to skin problems myself that started whilst Flint was in Hospital I have an antimicrobial emollient/ moisturiser lotion that helps me. I can use it instead of soap and also as a lotion. It is called Dermol 500 and I get it on prescription. The hydrocortisone was excellent but I didn’t like using it for too long.
YouTube was a Godsend for fixing our washing machine.