Welcome to this weeks Kids in the Kitchen.
Last week we made Easter Biscuits and this week we made Easter Chicks. We have loads more Easter recipes we’ll be trying out, well, it is my favourite time of year. Keep reading to see how we got on and our recipe. These chicks are so easy to make, really cute and taste yummy.
If you would like to find out more about Kids in the Kitchen you can read my dedicated page. Simply, it’s a linky where we share what our kids have cooked and it’s open all week starting from Tuesday.
A big thank you to last weeks linkers. North East Family Fun showed us how to make the best Lemon Drizzle Cake ever. A big big favourite of mine, but not a recipe I’ve let my chidlren loose on yet.
Also, the amazing Brilliant Chef from The Beesley Buzz showed us how to make sausage rolls and gave an important lesson of how the best chefs are the ones that experiment. He’s a lovely lad and his food blog is simply brilliant, so if you want to put a smile on an eight year old talented chefs face do please pay a visit to The Brilliant Chef and maybe leave a comment.
Please do come and join us this week, just link up any post, old or new.
Easter Chicks
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| blowing eggs |
Dear Mr S.
I am writing this letter to my daughter’s paedatric neurosurgeon. I felt the need to write it down and share. Whether I actually send the letter to him I don’t know yet.
Dear Mr S.
I called your office today to ask your secretary to give you a little reminder that you promised to call me last week. I know you are an incredibly busy man, but my daughter is eight years old and has been suffering for more than eight months and is very much in need of your care and attention. Also, I am a very stressed out mother who has barely slept for the last week.
Constantly on my mind is how my daughter’s condition has become so bad. I really can’t help thinking that if she had been treated properly and promptly in the beginning we would not now be facing surgery. For two weeks I brought her into the Accident and Emergency Department and was constantly told it was nothing to worry about and it would fix it self. It didn’t and she was offered a CT scan of her neck. The scan showed a subluxation of the atlanto occipital joint and she was admitted to your ward.
For a week she was treated with muscle relaxants while we waited for a traction bed for her. The bed arrived but the decision was made not to go ahead with traction and to try physio therapy instead.
I was happy to go along with this. Of course, the less distress to my daughter the better and if it could be put right by physio therapy then I was happy to bring her to the hospital twice a week.
It soon became apparent, however, that the physio therapy was not working. Her nurse was really concerned but had to push for another CT scan. After the scan the physio therapy was stopped, we were not told why, but we were then left in limbo. For weeks I waited for a call to come and see you and find out what was going on, what the next step was going to be. I was told that you were busy, that there were no appointments in your clinic, that I had to wait.
I became impatient and called the Patient Liason team at the hospital who finally managed to get me a clinic appointment. First my girl had to have another CT scan. At the appointment we were told she was going to be admitted for a manipulation as the subluxation had become worse and it needing correcting. So my daughter was taken to theatre and the manipulation performed and a halo traction brace fitted.
She wore the halo for thirteen weeks and on removal we believed that she would now be fixed. This was not the case, her neck began to slip back the very same day. At her halo removal check it was obvious that something was wrong so I was told she would need another CT scan. After the scan we were left in limbo again, not knowing what was going to happen next. I called your secretary who then managed to fit me in for an appointment.
The scan showed that a piece of my daughter’s bone had deteriorated and it was unlikely that it would hold her neck up without further intervention.
Then, well, we are still waiting to hear from you.
The questions going around in my mind are, how, when and why has her bone deteriorated? Was it in the beginning when her neck was so twisted the bones were grinding against each other? Did it happen while she was having physio therapy trying to make the bones go back into place? Maybe it happened during the manipulation? Why has it only just been detected, did it happen very recently? My daughter has had many scans and xrays (I have the dates and times of every one written down) why wasn’t it noticed sooner?
More importantly, what are you going to do for her now, and how much longer will we be waiting.
Yours Sincerely,
A Distressed Mum of a Beautiful, Brave Little Girl who deserves to be treated better.
This post will be duplicated on my other blog ZebraHooves
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Eight Months Ago Today
Eight months ago today my daughter woke with a stiff neck. It got worse, I took her to the GP. It didn’t get better so I took her to A&E, and now, eight months later things are still no better.
At first she was treated with a neck collar and regular physio therapy. That didn’t work and she actually got worse so she was given a manipulation to put the bones back in place and fitted with a halo to keep her neck straight. This took three months, thirteen weeks to be exact. The day the halo came off her neck twisted again.
Yesterday we found out that one of her bones had deteriorated, probably due to rubbing against another bone when her neck was at it’s worst. Now the bones will not stay in place without help. This means an operation and the return of the halo.
Star cried when she heard the news. She had gone into the appointment her bubbly cheerful self. She had picked up a Stop Smoking leaflet in the waiting room and told the nurse that she was going to give it to Daddy because she wanted him to quit smoking. She was chatty and happy. We’ve been in that consulting room so many times, we’ve been given bad news so many times, but nothing has phased her. Until today. Today she cried. I cried with her, how could I not.
She wants this to go away now. She loves the hospital, she loves the nurses, they all make such a fuss of her. She actually enjoyes her stays on the ward.
She’s had enough now, she wants it to stop, she wants to be fixed, or left alone.
I’ve had enough too, it’s not easy seeing your child suffer. It’s not easy transforming your life to fit around a child that is sick.
It’s scary thinking what might happen.
Very scary, but you have to hide it for fear of scaring her.
I hope and pray that my little girl will be fixed soon and all this will a nightmare of the past.
The Little Man Shines
Warining: This is a proud mummy post!
When my Little Man was a baby I was very worried about him. The only time he was happy was when he was lying flat across my lap. He was slow in reaching all his milestones, sitting, crawling (which he never managed to do, he was a bottom shuffler) walking and talking. He did not take his first steps until he was twenty two months old, and he still only babbled a couple of words by then.
He was slow and I was worried. Because of him not reaching his milestones he was offered a place at a preschool at just two years old. It was for two and a half days a week. I didn’t want him to go, he seemed too young, but I’m so glad I did. Suddenly he was catchng up to other children his age. He went from toddling just a few steps to walking, running and jumping in no time at all. His vocabulary increased and he became much happier.
He is now at nursery school. Ironically he does less hours than he did at pre-school, but he’s still coming along wonderfully. Even though he was often a little demon at home, at nursery he became a well behaved little man. He loves mixing with the other children and is, mostly, really friendly.
Last week I went to the school assembly to see my Little Man being presented with an award for working hard at learning how to write his name. He was such a good boy, listening carefully to instructions given, accepting his award with grace and then standing in line while the other children who had acheived an award joined him. The he went and sat down. Not bad at all for a three year old.
I was not allowed to take a photo of him accepting his award, and he hasn’t brought it home yet because it’s on the nursery wall for a couple of weeks. So instead I’m going to share a photo of the Little Man when he gradutated from pre-school.
Kids in the Kitchen – Easter Biscuits
This week on Kids in the Kitchen we made Easter Biscuits. A really simple recipe where the kids had lots of fun. We made our own icing bags to decorate the biscuits and later I’ll give you a little tutrial on how to make an icing bag.
If you would like to know more about Kids in the Kitchen please check out the page where I tell you why I started the linky and what you can do to join in.
I’d like to say thank you to the Brilliant Chef for joining in last week with his scrumptious Spring Cookies.
I’d love some more of you to join in this week, so please link up any posts you have of your children’s cooking activities. I can’t wait to read them.
Easter Biscuits
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| making the biscuits |
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| decorating the biscuits |
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| Our Easter Biscuits |
Icing Bag Tutorial
- Fold the sheet of greaseproof paper diagonally and cut to make a triangle.
- place the triangle upside down with the point nearest you and the flat side furthest away.
- Take one corner of the flat side and roll it up to the point of the triangle, holding with your fingers.
- Take the other corner and roll it up and around so it joins up with the first corner at the tip of the triangle.
- Fold over the ends to secure.
- Snip the end of the cone to make a tiny hole for the icing to come out.
