Not sure how to introduce this, after the high of yesterday’s Charlie’s Angels post. So I’ll just say it:

LB’s now an inpatient in a local psychiatric learning disability unit.

Whoah. What? What? What? Whaaaaat?

I would be shrieking if I read this blog regularly and read such a random, unexpected development. Sorry for the rip roaring pace. But that’s how life rolls in the strange world of non-information, uncertainty and general crapness that is health and social care.

The story was left with LB heading off to town with Sue and Tina. And a new (non) school timetable. Through a series of texts and conversations with a good mate/little bird during a long meeting at work, I found about a learning disability/mental health unit, five minutes from our house. Fifty metres from LB’s psychiatrist’s office. Yep. In the three conversations I’ve had with her, in two of which I raised serious concerns about risk of harm to himself or others, she didn’t mention, reassuringly, that there was always the option of a proper inpatient assessment so close by. We thought there was only out of county provision but this is the case for under 18 year olds, not adults.

Hearing that the town trip with Sue and Tina was cut short through agitation it was obvious that LB was moving into a space that was becoming increasingly small. And pretty much unworkable. It was time to act.

There followed a (bizarre and surreal) process that led to a call around 7pm confirming he had a bed. It was time to pack his bag.

There aren’t any words to convey how this feels and I ain’t going to demean it by trying.

I hope he’s in the right place for him, and gets some proper help.

Home feels very different without him.