Christmas Preparations

While my husband is slogging through the hell of last minute Christmas shopping, I am on my way to a meeting at the hospital.  Julie has been with them for over a week, and they want to discuss what to do about Christmas.  I am nervous that they will try to send her home before she is ready, and that we will spend part of Christmas Day frantically chasing around, our turkey burning in the oven while we try to negotiate her down from some high bridge and police sirens wail in the distance.  These are all scenes that have actually happened (well, not the turkey actually... but the rest, quite frequently), and I'm a bit tired of them.  I practice my firm but assertive speech in the car on the way over. This is a fine juggling act, because I will be sitting next to Julie - and saying that you don't want your child to come home at Christmas does feel disloyal.

But in the event the meeting is all very friendly and constructive; and it's perfectly obvious that nobody, Julie included, thinks she is ready to leave.  We all agree that she needs to stay on the ward a while longer, and that it is not a priority for her to spend Christmas Day outside.  Perhaps she will come out for a walk with us, and maybe come for tea on Boxing Day if she feels up to it.

A good friend is distraught at the idea that she will spend the day on a hospital ward, and not with us. I try, in vain, to explain that I don't mind, Julie doesn't mind, nobody really minds.  It's a nuisance, and all the running around means that I haven't bought my friend a Christmas present, which is why I'm explaining our situation to her at all. I would much rather Julie was not in hospital, but I'd much rather she was in hospital than wandering the streets or jumping off bridges.  It's all relative.  In practice, the period just before she goes into hospital, and the period just after she is discharged, are extremely high stress periods.  The period while she is in the hospital is calm, and I'm quite enjoying the break, to be honest.