Back at the Maudsley

On Friday, my husband and I both took Waif back to The Maudsley. This time the psych talked to Waif with us both there and only weighed her at the end. By that time Waif was so upset she was beyond talking to him and even saying goodbye.

She had apparently lost weight (37.2kg dressed) - 600g lighter than last time. But I reckon her weight has been pretty stable as she was wearing her school clothes this time and no blazer.

Having been quite positive and chatty throughout the consultation - forever saying things like "well Waif, when we weigh you I really expect to see you have put on weight" (everytime he said that I cringed as I suspected it would not come to pass) - the psych got suddenly serious in the last 2 minutes and told Waif she MUST stick to the meal plan. I think he was genuinely surprised that she hadn't put on wieght. Sigh, he hasn't even passed his psych exams yet, bless him.

I keep expecting an "answer" or an explanation of how we should tackle this, but we seem to purely have inane conversations about how Waif enjoyed Paris and what she is doing at school and who is around for meals. HThe psych asked Waif how she thought she had been eating and she said "fine". I said I thought that whilst she was doing quite well when I was around, I didn't think she ate much when I wasn't there. Waif asked me what I meant. I said, like the night I went to Champneys. Sigh, she couldn't leave it and asked me to explain further, so I said I had phoned her overnight friend and found out that she had told them she had already eaten when she hadn't, and that older sister had found her sandwich in the bathroom bin the next day at lunch. She went bright red and became tearful. I felt like a snitch and don't know whether I should have not said anything.

My husband's contribution was to say that he had been very skinny when he was young. His implication that perhaps Waif is just normal seemed to pass the psych by - I am not surprised as she is so clearly much too thin. In fact, I have had the school head of year contact me again yesterday to say that several teachers were concerned about Waif's weight.

So yesterday we finally got the initial assessment: EDNOS has been diagnosed (eating disorder not otherwise specified). It has been copied to our GP with a note that the lump in her neck needs to be looked at further. Perhaps this will prompt him to finally organise a scan.

Meantime, I half resigned at work on Monday but have not yet heard back whether my resignation has been accepted and on what terms - technically I have a 3 month notice period but I am hoping not to be held to that as I don't feel I am coping at the moment.

I am cross with the school today - perhaps I am casting around to find people to blame which is not helpful. Today Older Daughter was unable to have lunch (ie unable to eat between 6.45 am and her scheduled return home at 6.45pm) all because she forgot her lunch pass and her maths homework. Forgetting the lunch pass means that you can't eat until 1.15pm, after the others. Forgetting her maths homework meant that she had a maths detention at 1.15pm so couldn't eat at all. Then, to add insult to injury, the maths teacher had not set work for the detention so OD was sent away and told to redo her detention tomorrow. By then it was too late to get a lunch chit - so she missed eating FOR NOTHING. I cracked and picked her up from school at 4.30pm so that I could take her to eat something. Her Art coursework will have to wait.

I think I am going to bring this up with the headmistress as the school has a big problem with eating disorders and I think that partly it is because of the purely practical arrangements resulting in it being quite difficult to eat lunch on occasions.