accessing a hospital with autism & intelectual disability

was in hospital two days ago to have two teeth out and fillings done,as someone who has severe challenging behaviors from autism & ID [have mentioned this many times on the blog and elsewhere but ID is diagnosed as LD in the UK and what the US calls LD is what the UK calls learning difficulties,confusing eh?]  am given all dental treatment under general anaesthetic.

have been stressed about this for months but especialy recently as have got big physical medical issues at the moment including the highly painful and not pain controled lumbar spinal injury, any dental work triggers the trigeminal neuralgia which is a severe facial nerve condition that is also known as the suicide disease because of how painful it is so have got a bloody big right to be worried.


the trafford ID team and the special needs dentist of mine had been preparing this for a while, regulary visiting to explain with symbols and easy read information,discussing what will happen and the path we will take into the hospital and was put first on the operation list because of the level of behaviors that result from waiting.

the day finaly came and we finaly drove to the hospital,but the the driver of the two support staff hadnt a clue how to get into the back entrance of the hospital so we ended up the wrong way down a one way street and some old woman in a car waving her fists at the staff.

was given a private side room,and allowed to wear own clothes instead of the hospital clothing because of sensory and change issues.
the anaesthetist came in for a visit to say hi-she is a specialist in anaesthetising people with ID,and it turned out already knew her from past visits in the years gone by.
then one certain CSW madam from the trafford ID team came in to support as well,and was really greatful she was there to help calm and stop self from kicking off as was getting very bad with all the waiting,so yeah-thanks L,am really greatful for rushing to get to the hospital.

eventualy we went down and they kept the environment as calm as possible and the nurses and everyone was really nice,was given the canula and IV fluids hooked up,then the general anaesthetic to-can remember ending up fighting and being partly pinned down to stop from pulling at arm when the GA went in because it felt like a shock up arm,then woke up in recovery with that familiar disgusting taste in mouth,the madam;L was there.

it was extremely painful and was given sixty mg of codeine,am greatful they understood,am fed up of people not taking any pain of mine seriously enough because am not able to communicate pain or physicaly show pain.

was then allowed to take the rest of the morning medication;had been made to take most medications of mine at six am that day,but now was finaly able to take the naproxen which also helped with the pain.

had quickly recovered and was desperate to get out of there due to anxiety,coudnt wait for the dentist to finish the next patient so was allowed to be discharged,they said will want to go to bed when get home but just spent the day doing gardening on a raised flower box and watching dad put the rabbit run and connector pipe together before collapsing on the sofa in front of series four of breaking bad.

the day surgery team rule, pity all the hospital staff cant be like that, which is why canot wait to help train on severe autism and ID them soon.

heres some photos of just waking up in recovery,and one taken just as we got home;