Organisation!

Having a child like William and being me go really well hand in hand!

William doesn't make mess and I like being tidy.
William likes to sleep and so do I.
William doesn't need chasing around and I don't like running.
William likes having cuddles and I like giving him cuddles.
William needs a lot of organising and I love to be organised!

Over time William has added more and more and more and more equipment, medicines and disposables into the mix. This has required us to become more and more organised and inventive with our storage. We also regularly have other people in the house helping to care for William so we like to have everything easily locatable for them as well. Here's a little run down of how we stay organised caring for William.

William's Bedroom
Most of William's kit is stored in his room. We have single handedly given Ikea enough business to keep their Milton Keynes store open. I doubt there is a house in the country with more 'Stuva' furniture in it than our children's bedrooms combined.

From L-R, top - bottom: Oxygen; Medicine cupboard, syringe drawers, suction
catheters, medicine stock drawers, medical supplies drawer, feed drawer, under bed
storage boxes, nappy cupboard and more under bed storage boxes!

There is not an inch of William's room that isn't utilised for storage!

In one corner we store one of his oxygen concentrators and some of his oxygen cylinders, in another corner we store his suction catheters and in another we keep his standing frame.
Under his bed we have labelled boxes for suction equipment, oxygen equipment, nebuliser equipment, drawers for syringes and boxes of feeding supplies.
Under his therapy bench we keep his swim kit, suction bag and pump bag.
In one unit we store his nappies, wipes, disposable mats, towels for dribbling on, blankets and more feeding equipment.
In another unit we store all his medicine supplies. We have a shelf for the medicines he is currently on, a drawer for medical and gastrostomy supplies, a drawer for the rest of the months meds and a cupboard for even more meds, and all those bits and bobs you're not sure where else to put!

Wheelchair car park!

His bedroom also serves as the main storage area for his wheelchairs and standing frame. We often feel like we're playing one of those sliding puzzle games trying to move chairs around, in and out the lift.

Kitchen
Since starting William on a blended diet we've had to invest in a separate kitchen cupboard for him.
William 'eats' lots of healthy foods that we don't eat so we need space to store that and the hundreds of plastic tubs we need for freezing his food in.



William's trolley
After lots of illness last year and finding we were carting more and more equipment around the house, we decided to get William a trolley to follow him around the house with all his kit on. It keeps everything together and means everything is to hand when he's poorly and needing lots of attention.
We keep his suction machine, suction catheters, feeding pump, sats monitor, nebuliser, thermometer and pain relief on it.
It has proved to be one of our good organisation ideas! Eliza is very good at fetching the trolley for us and enjoys being able to help with something!

William's Paperwork
William is very proficient at accruing paperwork! He has his own filing cabinet with his older paperwork in. In the house he has three folders with his current paperwork in. One folder stores all his most current, relevant paperwork. This is the folder we take with us if we go away in case William fell ill. Another folder contains all his direct payment paperwork. The way William's respite works is we are given a funding package to hire our own carers. We are basically their employers so this produces a lot of paperwork. Finally his big folder contains all the other paperwork that we don't always need with us but might need to access.

As the equipment increased and the care routine became more full on, we found we were struggling to keep on top of William's routine. We'd only need to get behind with one 'drink' and the whole day was knocked off and we wouldn't finish his evening routine until 9pm. We therefore decided to write a daily plan for William's care on the days when he's not at school and we needed more structure.

So far we've found it to be fairly successful but there's usually something to throw us a bit off track! Of course at the weekends we have to tweak everything around if we're out and about but at least we have an idea of where we should be.

It's full-on caring for William and keeping on top of all his supplies, deliveries and equipment but it certainly helps keeping organised!