Family is Forever

71- Good Progress

Zosia was staying home with Babcia again. Babcia was determined to teach Zosia to cook polish meals. Today Kotlet kurczeta (breaded chicken similar to chicken Kiev) it was one of Zosia's childhood favourites and one of Ali's too.
Ollie had to drop Ali at day treatment for half 8 as it was a Thursday. He was surprised at how lenient his boss Jac Naylor was being at allowing him to be pretty flexible with his shifts . He was starting at nine today and finishing at 3. Zosia and Ollie only had one car between them both as there wasn't often need for two and Ollie didn't want Ali to have to take the bus home. As Ollie pulled into the car park, Ben, one of the clinicians from day treatment came over. "Morning Ali." He said and she wished him good morning too. "Oliver do you have a few minutes to come in for a chat. Nothing to worry about?"
"Sure, I don't start work for an hour"
Ben turned back to Ali, "Mrs Yates is in room 3"
Ali was happy to hear that her teacher was there, she'd been emailing her essays and all sorts of questions and other school work over the last few months and the Christmas Holiday, and despite it being a holiday Mrs Yates would always get back to her quickly.
Ali knocked on the door of consulting room 3.
"Come in." She smiled "Cześć Natalia.  Co tam u ciebie?" Hello Natalia how are you. "Good thanks" Ali replied in Polish. They exchanged a little small talk about their Christmasses in Polish and then Mrs Yates got a folder out and continued in Polish. "Are you still planning to ale your Polish exam and general studies this year, in one year? Ali indicated that she was so Mrs Yates continued "As I expected, there's no issue with your Polish language, I know I gave you 2 of the literature texts last term and your essays have been fine As and Bs so they're great too. Here's the other 2 texts."
"Ohh Balladyna a classic," Ali smiled picking up the first book "it's one of my Babcia's favourites she's always nagging me to read it, no excuses now. And Zemsta" she switched to English "zemsta as in revenge?"
"Yes it's a fun one, a comedy" Mrs Yates replied in Polish. "A good contrast to the tragedy of balladyna." They continued to chat through Ali's essays and then started doing the same in French for her French essays. "Le français est plus difficile pour moi." French is much more difficult for me. Ali rolled her eyes although most of her essays were still Bs. "Well the fact it's not your first or even second language probably doesn't help." Mrs Yates smiled making Ali laugh. The teacher passed Ali a folder "this is from Mrs Atkins the head of biology, it means nothing to me but she told me your poster on kidney failure was one of the best she'd ever seen and she photocopied it because the original is on her classroom wall." This made Ali laugh "I live with 2 surgeons. I was making a less detailed one until Zosh stepped in."
"How is Zosia?" Mrs Yates said more tenderly "I heard she wasn't at work, some of the nurses at holby are polish and I still go to mass with my mama, news travels fast in the Polish community. Is it the bipolar again?"
"She's ok, she struggled over Christmas, we both did, but we're ok now. My Babcia has come to stay and that's helped a lot."
"I was thinking about popping over but didn't know if Zosh would be up to that and if you would mind?" Mrs Yates said. She'd popped around a few times in the last few months to drop off work for Ali and always ended up chatting with Zosia since they were old friends and staying for tea. "I think she'd like that. You should drop her a text."
"I will, on one condition."
"Whats that?"
"That when I'm in your home, as Zosia's friend rather than a teacher, you would stop Calling me miss. Call me Agata, Aggie or Aga."
"Ok Aga" Ali laughed.
"I'll text her now, can you please get Elsie for me."
"Thank you see you soon." Ali smiled at her teacher.

Meanwhile Ollie was talking with Ben the eating disorders clinician. "Ali's making good progress." Ben said. Ollie looked at Ben puzzled "including the suicide attempt?"
"No I meant with her weight. She's not lost any over Christmas, which is ok at this point." He explained "although depression and suicide aren't too rare. The low weight causes issues with the brain which causes depression and that can cause suicidal thoughts. I thought I'd let you know that we've given Ali fluoxetine, as you're a doctor I'm sure i don't have to explain to you what that is."
"I know." Ollie said "she gave them to me, wanted me to keep hold of them. When I spoke to her about it she said that she didn't feel suicidal today but she might tomorrow or the day after so wanted me to keep them."
"That's great." Ben smiled "shows that she trusts you, over herself and her eating disorder which is really positive. Is there anything about her eating that you want to talk or ask about? Ben questioned. "Well her grandmother from Poland is staying and she seems to be doing better with the traditional polish recipes. I was wondering if it could be because she used to help her grandmother make them when she was young so she knows exactly what's in them." Ollie mused.
"That's definitely a possibility." Ben agreed "now Ali's been here over 2 months. We like for families to give their eating disorder patients more choice once they've been here a while, I have a list of common foods and their calorific content for you and wondered if you'd be able to take Natalia shopping with you and let her pick out a few of her own snacks. You'll need to supervise, anything low fat is obviously a big no-no but other than that so long as she chooses varied foods then it should be fine.."
"I will thank you. I was actually planning a big shop this evening. We can go once I've picked Natalia up." Ollie smiled politely "i'd best get off towards work."
"Ok, and Oliver, if anything happens keep us in the loop as ever."