Bettina’s first Costa Coffee following her Dental Surgery, the plan worked.

If someone asked me who is the most courageous person you know? In an instant I would say it was Bettina. We have just arrived home from a private specialist Dentist where Bettina has just had a complex dental surgery. ‘B’ was incredibly brave, and the Dental team were super impressed with her cooperation despite her communication challenges.

Her tiger mum Joyce Raw had a plan for the day and we all stuck to it (even the dental team referring to the “naughty tooth”) #TeamBettina

Introduction

After a sleepless night for Joyce and me, thinking about all the potential challenges we were going to face leading up to and during Bettina’s complex dental surgery later that day, we were all about to fulfil the plan that Joyce had put together for us to follow. This was Bettina’s surgery, but we all had a significant role to play within the plan to support her.

Several weeks prior to her surgery, Bettina and I had been enjoying a walk on the greensward in Frinton-on-Sea, when Bettina stumbled biting into her gum exposing a wisdom tooth which we were later to be informed, would need to be extracted. Bettina was in so much pain, so the operation was imperative for her.

Bettina is a woman who copes with a learning disability, autism, and epilepsy. She has the additional challenge of a severe, and quite complex, communication disorder. Bettina has an absolute trust with her parents and sister, that they will protect and look after her, but she does need to know what is coming next. The dental surgery was going to assess our planning & organisational skills.

Starting our Plan (what we needed to consider?)

  1. Had we done enough research about the operation and understood what was involved? We obtained several booklets from the Dental Surgeon during a consultation visit prior to the operation.
  2. All the activities involved within the process: leading up to going to the dental appointment, our arrival at the dentist, the operation, and then afterwards (the pain management phase).
  3. What would be the key activities which must be achieved to reach the desired outcome for Bettina? – a Critical Path Analysis (CPA)* All the tasks on the critical path must be completed on schedule if the project is to be finished as originally planned.
  4. Who would be involved in the plan and what were their individual roles and responsibilities?
  5. What was going to be the ‘life cycle’ for the plan e.g. Vision – Initiation (what is the vision?) – Planning (how will the vision is achieved) – Implementation (doing it) then monitoring & review) and finally ‘closure’: “mum is going to help Bettina get better and look after Bettina’s mouth now that the naughty tooth has gone….” (extract from the plan).

What was included:

  • Taking Bettina with us on a ‘recce’ of where the dentist was located, (she never forgets a route).
  • The plan needed to be accessible for Bettina, she needed to be able to understand and follow each stage of the process, so she felt this was her plan. There was a mixture of: pictures, drawings and symbols included which Bettina recognises and likes.
  • An introduction that described what was going to happen that morning. (the operation was late afternoon). Bettina was going to stay at home with her mum and dad and have a ‘small lunch.’
  • ‘In the afternoon this is what we are going to do…’
  • Joyce had drawn clocks with a time for each activity for Bettina to follow (B is a clock watcher)
  • A rehearsal, we used the consultation visit to go through how Bettina would lie down and to put the breathing apparatus on around her mouth so she knew how it felt and there would be as few surprises as possible.

“As Steve likes to lead by example, he had to have the same clingfilm treatment B had. It meant applying a numbing cream and wrapping in clingfilm to maintain the sterile environment so that they could put the IV drips in painlessly. She did not make any fuss as I had downloaded an image for her to see first. Steve did not make a fuss either – brave little soldier! B is recovering and so are we!”  Joyce Raw

Six Tips from Bettina’s Plan:

  1. Brainstorm all activities involved. Include: the activity, a date it needs to be completed, and who is responsible.
  2. Carryout a ‘Critical Path Analysis’ for the essential activities that need to be met to achieve the outcome.
  3. Know your audience – is the plan accessible for them?
  4. Does your plan have a ‘life cycle’? what are the phases to which you are working?
  5. Ensure you are regularly updating, monitoring, and evaluating your plan.
  6. Celebrate we often forget to do this because we are so busy thinking about the next important thing we must achieve. After the operation with Bettina, we celebrated a lot!

And Finally

This from Joyce: “We are just so proud and in awe of what we can achieve with Bettina. It took planning and work sheets, plus leading by example – sorry Steve for wrapping you in clingfilm – now the pain management and healing begin.

And this is something I wrote about Bettina a while ago ‘What is courage without fear” Bettina when it comes to courage you have it in buckets.

https://leadershipintheraw.org/…/being-bettinas-dad…/

*Note  CPA is a planning tool that plots out a project’s stages in a logical sequence, indicating which of the component activities need to be finished before others can start. It allows for activities to be scheduled simultaneously to save time. Activities that are critical to the project are identified – these are steps, which if delayed, will hold up the completion of the whole project.

Source: Steve Raw