Month: March 2012

Stressful day

/ Tony / Leave a comment

I think the interview went well. I did not get as tongue tied as I usually do. I don’t think they asked me any questions that I could not answer, but I didn’t seem to be talking a lot. I will find out on Friday. I got a bit of a surprise though. I thought I was applying for a specific job. However, it would seem that, I was applying for a position at the same grade, and only ‘preferencing’ (their term, not mine) the job I would like to do. If I do not fit their matrix, then I could end up doing something completely different. How do I feel about that? I don’t know really. I think, so long as it pays the same, and it is a job I can do, then what the hell, let’s go for it. I tell you something, it would be a right smack in the face to the smug bugger, who thinks I should be at his ‘beck and call’. Do you know, I have had more good wishes about this job from contacts on Twitter than I have from the people I work with!!!!! My service manager wished me good luck, but he has an ulterior motive, he does not want anyone else to do my job…I’m cheaper. My line manager, who has been my line manager for over 10 years, did not say good luck. At least he could have sent a txt. Nothing. What does that say to me? How valued do I feel, if my direct supervisor cannot bring himself to wish me luck? I am too annoyed to really vent my anger about this, so I will stop now.

On another note. I just bought a ‘caddy’ or enclosure for S****s old laptop hard drive. The motherboard gave in, and he was so pissed off about it that he paid about £160.0 to get the data off it and onto a USB portable drive. There was a lot of work he had done for his drama group, and he did not want to lose it again. So now he has three 500gb portable hard drives. Job done. I was quite amazed, at how cheap these hard drive caddies are. It cost me £7.49 inc, which I thought was very cheap. I remember looking at one a few years ago, when I changed computers, and I was looking at £50.00 at least. I have a couple of old hard drives in the loft (never throw them out, can’t be too careful), so I may have a look at getting a caddy for one of them.

Catch up time

/ Tony / Leave a comment

I’m on holiday this week. We are not going anywhere, I’m just using up the last of my leave. I have my interview tomorrow (Thursday), so fingers crossed. Neither job I’m applying for, covers what I do at the present, but if I get one of the jobs, I think I will be doing a lot of the same work. Well that’s what both my line manager and service manager think. That is what they want, and they somehow are under the impression, that I have some influence over what work I will be doing. I don’t think that will be the case. If I’m successful, I will have a new line manager and new service manager, and it will be those people, that decide what I will be doing.

R*** was a bit of a pain on Sunday. He did not want to go out with D**, his support worker. D** has not been well over the past few weeks and we suppose that R*** has got out of the habit of going. From the moment he awoke, to the moment D** arrived, all we heard was “No out with D**”…”No D**’s house”…”Poor D**”…”No out. R***’s house”. However, he did go, and D** seemed to think he had been okay. Monday, school took the class out for a walk, by the river. R*** decided that it would be a good idea, to throw his headphones into the river. So, £270.00s worth of Bose, noise cancelling headphones, were last seen floating down the river Wharfe, in Boston Spa. I am tempted to think, that it may have been a payback, but then he was out with D** on Tuesday afternoon, and came back as happy as anything. So who knows, what goes on in an Autistic mind.

Mrs Me and S**** are out tonight. They are going to see Calendar Girls at the Grand Theatre, in Leeds. It was not something that I wanted to see, but Mrs Me did, and as it is her birthday, S**** said he would go. Last report, was they were sat outside La Tasca, eating Tapas. I’m having Egg & Chips I think !!! Make of that, what you will.

Glad it’s Friday

/ Tony / Leave a comment

It has been an odd week! Tuesday night Quiz Night was really good fun for a change. I’ve not been for a couple of weeks, what with the way R has been after the medication change. So it was good to go out, and with R being on respite, Mrs Me could go too.

Wednesday came, and with it came the news that my job interview (for the job I’m already doing) has been brought forward by 2 weeks. I was quite lucky, as I had done my application forms, some time ago. I only needed to double check and tweak them and they could go. My interview is on Thursday 29th, so fingers crossed. The thing that has annoyed me a little, well more than a little, is that nobody in the office, with the odd exception, seems to be interested in what I want from this review. It is all ’what will we do about…’ and ‘who is going to …’ and lots of ’we need you to do…’  All I want is a job I can do, paid at the same rate, doing something I like. We shall see what happens. I will keep you posted.

Yesterday we had R’s annual review, which was over in about 2 minutes. It was also a ‘transition’ review at the same time. It is his last few weeks at West Oaks, and he is moving from Adult Services with Leeds CC to ‘Continuing Care’ with North Yorkshire Health. I cannot pretend to understand the mechanics of it all, but it would seem that he has a much better chance of getting funding, for his placement, through Health Service (until Cameron’s Goons get to hear about it I suppose.) We want him to go ‘out-of-area’ as they call it. All the services in Leeds have stated, that they cannot meet his needs (nothing Autistic specific in Leeds it seems.) However this out of area service can… but at a price. We did initially think about full time residential, but I don’t think anyone is ready to go that far yet.So we have decided on a day placement. If we mix it in with a monthly respite allowance, we think it will work. We now have to wait on the funding approval. Hopefully, we should get to know just after Easter. More crossed fingers everyone.

Today, Mrs Me had a mole removed from her arm. She has been to the doctors a few times with it, as it has been changing shape over the past few year. The past few doctors have not been bothered about it. However, last week, she saw the doctor we are registered with, and her set the wheels in motion to get it looked at. Today was the day. I could not get any time off, with it being close to the end of the the financial year, so S went with her. The mole has now been replaced with a two and a half long scar. Both of them were pretty amazed, that they did the removal straight away. Mind you, she is paying for it now, she is in a lot of pain.

I have decided on my subject/genre for the novel, I intend to write. It is going to be a ‘middle earth’ type fantasy novel. I have the basic story outline and have drawn a map. I have begun to build a character profile for the main characters, and am starting to have ideas about the locations and events, although, they’re still in my head at the moment. I reckon it will take about 1 1/2 to 2 years to write. That is based on the fact that there are many times when I just cannot be bothered. But 2 years seems to me to be a realistic time scale

I think i will stop now

Tags: quiz,medication,respite,office,transition,Adult,Services,Leeds,Care,North,Yorkshire,Health

mechanics,placement,Service,Cameron,Goons,Autistic,Easter,mole,removal,Mind,genre,earth

Happy haircut

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Well that was fun. R*** did not want to go at all, but to do him justice, he went along in the end, without too much fuss. Until we got there of course. It wasn’t full, but some of the people in there were a little loud, which upset him a bit. I spent the next ten minutes with him digging his fingers into every tender part of my arm and hand. This is one of the more usual methods of showing his annoyance. Once in the chair, then he changed a lot. He simply sat there and let the girl cut his hair. They are all used to him after all these years, but he suddenly decided to echo back, what the girl had said, in a high pitched voice. The whole hairdressers found it highly amusing, which of course, made him keep on saying it. In the end, it went very well.

Word Blog test …. results

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Well, a bit of a surprise here. I did manage to post a blog post, but I was very disappointed with it. Word 2010 appears to be a very basic blogging tool, which is surprising, given the complexity of it. After a bit of research I found the following that Word 2010 does not support:

  • the use of plugins
  • viewing your post in HTML mode
  • scheduling of posts
  • tags

Some of the features it does have are:

  • the ribbon toolbar
  • capture screenshots of existing open windows
  • able to insert shapes, charts and word art
  • a new feature known as Format painter that allows you to copy one formatting from one place to another

Now, I’m not that bothered about the ’ribbon toolbar’ and Word Art is nothing special, so the ‘features’ do not do very much for me.

I have had a look at Blogdesk which I used before, but it apparently does not work with Windows 7. So it looks like I’ll be sticking with Windows Live Writer for the time being.

Tags: Word,Blog,HTML,ribbon,Blogdesk,Windows,Live,Writer,toolbar

Word 2010 blog test

/ Tony / Leave a comment

This is a quick test for blogging with Microsoft Word.

I’ve just been congratulating myself on a lucky find. I was at ASDA yesterday, buying the obligatory Mother’s Day flowers, and as usual, I used the ‘self-service’ check out. I had removed my card and looked toward the receipt slot, when I noticed that on the packing shelf was a large receipt that someone else had left. I finished packing and removed my receipt, then picked up the receipt that had been left.

I checked the ‘price-check’ this morning, and what a surprise, I got a voucher for £3.50. Always pays to check.

Tags: Microsoft, Word, blogging, shopping, Mother’s Day, test

Views but rarely commented on

/ Tony / Leave a comment

I do get people viewing my efforts, but very rarely get a comment. Is it my subject matter ? Is it my style ? I am of the opinion, these days, that people just don’t seem to have anything to say about my posts. Do I need to pick a subject, that I know a lot about and blog about that, I wonder. But then again, what do I know a lot about? My family, there’s a start. I know what will happen there, I will end up just talking about R***, and his problems. I could talk about work. No, that could lead me into a lot of trouble. Music perhaps. But my taste is so eclectic, that the blog would too confusing. Sport !! Non runner there. I’m fast running out of ideas.

I think I will just have to continue in the same vein as I am now. Write about anything that comes into my head and forget about others comments.

Getting back to normal (?)

/ Tony / Leave a comment

When I typed the title of this post, I thought I must put a query against the word normal. As if anything in this house could possibly be described as normal!! Of course, if you have been following events over the past week or two, you may know I refer to R***. Things are beginning to get back to ‘normal’ with him. He is completely off the new medication, and back on the old one. It has taken a couple of days, but there has been a vast improvement since the beginning of the week. We still get the odd ‘episode’, but the unnatural behaviour that we were experiencing has just about disappeared. Of course, the consultant has told Mrs H, that there are other medications ‘we’ can try (I love when they say we), but they want him back to his old self before they start anything else.  My opinion is that that we leave it as it was. We could cope with him before the new med, so lets leave it at that. The problem with the old medication was that there was an increase risk of heart problems, and they would  have to monitor him more closely. So be it.

Mrs H has not been too well, these past few days. What with what’s been happening to R*** and the tooth extraction, it has been quite a traumatic week. Her and S**** were supposed to be going out last night, but she was not really well enough, so I ended up going instead. The thought of driving in the condition she was in, overruled her fears of being alone in the house with R***. In the end, he was alright. She is still not right, and she has to go to work tomorrow.

S**** is out with his work colleagues. They have gone ten-pin bowling in Leeds, and I’m sat waiting for the phone call to pick him up. Most of the shops are going, and they have hired a mini-bus to bring his team back to Wetherby. I’ll pick him up from there. It should be around 1:00am I think.

The story writing has ground to a halt. I don’t think I am ready to tackle ‘erotic horror’ tales just yet, so I need to think of something else. That is the first hurdle. A topic. A topic that I either know something about or can find out about. Any of you got any ideas for me ??

Tags: medication,episode,behaviour,consultant,medications,opinion,tooth,

extraction,colleagues,Leeds,team,Wetherby,horror,tales,topic

Spoilt for choice ??

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Choice, I hear you ask. It was either update the blog, or watch a very old movie. Well here I am.

How is R? Well the half dosage of the new medication did not work. Last afternoon, just before I got home at 4:30, he completely lost it. He bit Mrs H, so badly, that he drew blood. He ripped her necklace off, and we don’t know what happened to that. We have had someone doing some work for the past few days, and he was there when this all happened. He was very worried, and did not know what to do. He’d never seen anything like it. Anyway, Mrs H contacted his medical team, explained what had happened and told then we were taking off the the drug. They agreed that it was the best thing to do, although still saying that the effects were unusual. But, what was going on with him? What was he experiencing? I don’t know, and he’ll never tell us. One of the effects is hallucinations !! Was he experiencing this? Who knows. Even if he knew what a hallucination was, he could not tell us. It’s not something he can do. It is part of his Autistic disorder.

Today has been better. Mrs H went to pick S up from work, and I stayed with him. Mrs H does not like driving in the dark, but she has got so frightened of what he will do, that she does not like being alone with him, at the moment. However, he was fine, and we played hide and seek (the only interactive game he will play) until he could not find me. Then he started to go ‘off’. However, this time, he did his usual chin pressing for a while, but calmed down quite quickly, which given what has gone on the past week was brilliant.

I have to say, S has been fantastic. Very understanding, very calm. He seems to be able to get through to R better than us. Maybe an age thing ! It was one of the reasons he went to live away for 2 years while he was at Uni. If R had not been like he was, then S might not have gone. Although, I think we all needed him to do it, we just won’t admit it.

Well that’s it for now. i may just watch a bit of that old movie for a while.

Tags: Choice,movie,medication,blood,necklace,drug,hallucination,Autistic

Weekend over ???

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Yes it is over, and to be honest, I’m quite glad about it. It wasn’t the painting that was the problem, although that was stressful in itself, it was the problems with R. It must have been the new medication. Sunday was just as bad as Saturday. It just was not him, and he was so distressed. Mrs H rang his consultant on Monday morning, and explained just what he was like, and that we were very concerned. He did not settle down to sleep on Saturday, until gone half past one, and it was the same Sunday night. The consultant said that it was not a usual side effect, and to halve down the dosage, He was better last night, although still a bit agitated. He did settle to sleep earlier though. Mrs H says he was a ‘bit bouncy’ this morning, which usually means he was he was running up and down the room on his toes. If he is smiling or laughing, then we are fine. If he is holding his ears, then it indicates that he is getting upset,

I cannot help being a bit bemused at the comment “….not a usual side effect….”, He has never had that medication before, and ALL Autistic kids/people have different reactions to different things, how can anyone know what the side effects will be. Still, they appear to be listening to us.

Decorators cramp ….

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Apart from what happened recently, it has been a long long day. Mrs H wanted the stairwell painting. Just the walls. The roof will do (my comments btw). So ‘a painting we will go’ or so I thought. I did as usual, and did all the cutting in first (techie term there) before starting with the roller. The roller … nightmare!!! I thinned the paint down a little, by 2% and started, then stopped. The bloody paint was drying as fast as I could put the stuff on the wall. I tried with a paint pad …… even worse. The damn thing would not even move across the wall. I eventually had to let the paint down by 10%, before I could really get to work. It must be the paint, because I have used rollers and paint pads with other paints, without any problem, so it must be the paint. Mind you, I’m not a big fan of famous brand named paints. They may have a cute shaggy dog, but I think their paint is rubbish. Anyway, once the paint was at the correct viscosity, I managed to finish. I’m now completely kna……ed

Tags: branded,paint pad,paint,Decorators,stairwell,roller

Side effects …. you don’t want to know

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Today was the first day with the full dosage of his new medication. It is supposed to calm him down for the day, and we we’ve been told that it is used a lot for Autistic types. We, or should I say Mrs H, have been introducing the new drug over the past week. He has been on half a dose all week, together with half a dose of the original meds. Over the past few months, he’s been quite good. He has had episodes, where he has been upset, but the ‘emergency’ tablet has usually worked. We’ve not had him breaking anything for years, until tonight. Tonight he broke his Thomas dish. Now this dish is one of those hard plastic type cereal dishes that last forever. Tonight he broke one. He must have thrown it with such a force, as I have never seen anybody crack one let alone shatter one. Now I don’t believe in coincidences, but it is strange, that the first day of this med, and he does something he’s not done for a long time. He knew he’d done something wrong though. I was unusually calm when I went into his room, but he was so agitated, that he went for me almost immediately. The usual chin pressing on my arm/hand/head. The so called ‘emergency’ tablet worked it’s wonders and brought him down again, and at the moment (23:30) he seems to be quite calm. I am not happy with this, and will continue this conversation as it progresses.

Tags: medication,Autistic,drug,tablet,Thomas,coincidences,room,chin,moment,conversation,week