Look, I don’t want to be overly optimistic here so let’s be cautiously optimistic.

I had a really good visit with Zoey last night, a real turning point I thought.

We had some serious interaction and for the first time she said she wanted to come home. She didn’t just say it she really said it then hugged me sobbing for around 10 minutes.

There was a worrying aspect to the visit though. Zoey isn’t really talking except when she gets really emotional. I felt she wanted to talk but that she was stopping herself. Rather than tell or ask her to speak I did a series of questions with nod or shake head answers. I am going to simplify what went on for about 15 minutes. In a nutshell she was scared and said that someone there has told her she isn’t allowed to talk. I was getting to the who when she couldn’t answer any more and got very upset. She certainly gave me the impression she was scared. Obviously that’s worrying and I did report it to a staff member. I intend to do so again to a higher level staff member.

Today was another mostly good visit, certainly between me, Sean & Zoey. Annoyingly we became aware that once again no one was watching Zoey or taking an interest in her needs. I discovered she was still in pads despite being told they wouldn’t be used any more. Further, I noticed that the pad seemed to have leaked. I asked Zoey if she was comfortable like that and in a very relaxed way she said she wasn’t and we went to her room so she could use the toilet. Imagine my despair when I discovered she didn’t have a change of clothes there!

Zoey was quite upset because she obviously did want to use the toilet but couldn’t.

I asked staff members until I eventually found someone who’d check the laundry, we discovered some of the clothes but a significant amount had gone missing.

What followed was an unpleasant confrontation with the head nurse. This nurse was trying to tell me that sometimes mistakes are made and it’s not unacceptable, I told her quite bluntly it was always unacceptable. She said that just because they didn’t check Zoey or look after her clothes or make sure she could use the toilet, that didn’t mean that hadn’t achieved anything. I retaliated with the fact that I’d never for one moment connected any such thing. I’d merely pointed out that our priority area of concern right now was Zoey using the toilet and not wearing pads and asked why it was so difficult to concentrate on that one task, how comes they couldn’t recognise in hours what we’d discovered in minutes? There was no answer, just a shrug.

So, complaint again tomorrow and I am so getting sick of complaining all the time. I should be able to relax knowing my daughter is somewhere safe and being cared for properly.

The sooner we can get her home the better.

I obviously had to replace the clothes, that’s £112 it cost me, money I don’t really have as the government has taken away my income of course because Zoey is in hospital and, when someone is in hospital, no one at home can legally be caring for her!