Please Can I Have One???!!!? ...

Today as part of College, we went to a Care Home. Ever since then, my mum has been laughing at me as I seriously fell in love with all of the old people there LOL! They were all SO cute and seriously, I could have took them home with me if I was allowed to! The other girls that went to the Care Home were the same as me too! The teachers on my College Course are always saying that you should never become too attached to the patients but I bet it is really hard when they are so cute and loving!

The trip to the Care Home was really interesting. One of the carers showed us round. It was split up into 3 areas; there was a resident section where all of the old people went and lived / went to stay whilst their carers got a break etc, another part which was more specialised and was for elderly patients with Alzeihmers and Demention and another place for people between the ages of 18 and 60 with all sorts of different illnesses, drug and addiction problems etc.

We learnt a lot from the visit and they showed us all of the hoists that are used to lift patients, how they work etc. The whole idea of the Care Home visit was to prepare us for our first placement and give us an insight into what to expect and after today, I am really looking forward to my first placement!

Towards the end of the visit, we were asked to play Bingo with all of the residents which was really fun! I had to work with a lady who was deaf and mark all of the numbers down for her whenever they came out. She was so kind and sweet, always smiling and asking me to have the prizes as we won!

It was amazing to see how grateful the patients in the Care Home were when we went to see them! When we had to go, they kept thanking us for coming and said they really enjoyed themselves! It was SO nice being able to give something back to them and see the smiles on their faces!

I'm really looking forward to my first Placement which starts on the 23rd November for 2 weeks. It's not in the same place as we went today but it is in a Care Home so it should be really good!

My legs hurting a lot now! I think I did a little too much today and am paying for it. I have School in the morning tomorrow but then I can come back, relax and finish my assignment that has to be in on Wednesday for Child Development. I was supposed to have a Physio appt last week but my Physiotherapist is ill with Swine Flu so had to cancel ... it seems to be going round like wild fire at the moment! My College tutor was really ill with it a few weeks ago but is better now thankfully!

I want to thank you all for the continued support - it's really appreciated :-)!!

Update

I haven't updated my Blog for quite a long time so please accept my sincere apologies for that - things have been pretty hectic here lately so I haven't been able to get on the computer much!!

I started College about 3 weeks ago and am really enjoying it! It seems so strange saying that i'm at College as most people don't start until they are 16 years old and i'm only 14 lol!

I'm studying Society, Health and Development which is really interesting. We look at all 4 sectors of Health and Social Care such as Health, Child Care, Criminal Justice and Social Care so it's really interesting as you get a taste of all of the areas that you can go into, not just one!

I currently attend College 3 half days a week. At the moment, on a Monday, we are doing Communication, on a Wednesday afternoon we are doing Child Care and on a Thursday afternoon, we are doing Criminal Justice. I have learnt quite a lot since being on the Course. It is a LOT of hard work however, I don't think anyone really anticipated how hard it was going to be! Just today in fact, my tutor was saying that she thinks the course is a lot harder than most others and thinks it should be targeted more towards 16 year olds. She thinks that we will sail through it though as we are all commited to it.

I had my Placement induction day last week which was interesting. I found out that my first placement will start on the 23rd November and will be in a Care Home where I will have to look after old people etc. The placements last 10 days (2 school weeks) and we have to do 50 days of placements in all the 4 sectors to pass the course during the 2 years. Seeing as I am doing my first placement in a care home, all of the other kids will be doing it in another area and then we will swap so that it is fair.

I'm looking forward to my first placement, it's something that i'm interested in and I have heard that it's supposed to be quite interesting. It's worked out well as the Care Home is near where my mum works so she can take me there and pick me up as the College doesn't provide transport.

I've made a lot of great friends on the Course who have really helped me. They all know about my RSD and don't judge me because of it ... I guess it's easier for them to understand as they all want to go into the health care professions when they are older.

We are going on a trip to an Hospice next month so the course is quite hands on. Obviously, we wont be able to see all of the terminally ill patients because of our age but we will get to meet some of the patients that come in for day treatment etc. We are also helping to hold a Coffee Morning for the kids of terminally ill patients at the College sometime next month (we are arranging a day for that next week) so that should be fun!

When i'm not at College, I still attend the School centre so I am pretty busy every day now. It's been hard trying to get up for School and things but I guess it's something I have to do in order to succeed.

My mum has paid for me to do a Science course at home to take some of the extra burden off me however, I still have to go to School to do Science lessons once a week for 2 hours. I started going back to School last week and was terrified ... I hadn't seen any of the kids for nearly 2 years and I was so nervous as to what they'd say etc! I'm still not keen on going to School once a week as it is really stressful but I need to do it to pass my College Course.

The School has arranged for a lady to come and sit with me during my Science lessons. She is really nice but sometimes, I just wish she would leave me on my own to do my lessons and talk to people instead of treating me like a baby! I don't always like attention being drawn towards my ilness ... I just want to try and be as 'normal' as I can!! With her there, it sometimes feels as though it is drawing more attention towards my illness. I think she has to be there though as the School was scared incase I spilled anything during the lessons etc.

My great uncle sadly passed away last week. He had been ill for quite a long time now and deteriated further. I wanted to go to the funeral but my great grandma was being awkward saying that I shouldn't go and that it wasn't a place for kids to go ... she's really old fashioned when it comes to things like that! My aunty is quite upset so we have told her that we will go and spend some time with her to keep her company.

My mum and I have been asked to go to the House of Commons in London on the 27th November to speak to all of the MPs and maybe even Gordon Brown about Schools not supporting kids with a chronic illness. My Dr knew that I have had tons of problems with my education and school not understanding so thought it would be great for us to go and talk to them and hopefully, it will change things for the better! I'm really looking forward to going and really hope people will finally see sense and start improving schools ... it's bad enough dealing with RSD let alone schools being awkward too!

My RSD has been flaring up quite a bit. I think that the extra pressures of school / college and the weather changes haven't been helping. I'm finding that on a weekend, all I tend to do is collapse and spend most of the days in bed ... it's sort of like my body can't take any more by that point and shuts down! I have my Physio appointment next week, I haven't been for quite a while so i'm hoping they will be able to suggest somethings that might help.

Apologizes again for 'abandoning' my Blog! I will try and update it more regulary! I hope you are all doing well!