The rest is up to her

When I got in from work tonight, Coran informed me that the local hospital had rung yet again, with regard to my sister, and that I should call them back. Once I had eaten and watched EastEnders I proceeded to do this, to be told that she had been to the Casualty Unit earlier that day complaining of abdominal pains, and not wanting to wait, had discharged herself. They could not then have been that bad.

Up until April, we had heard nothing from her in months, thanks largely to the fact that she had lost our telephone number. Given her illness and history, I have to confess that we were quite glad of this as it meant that we could get some peace. Yee of little hope!

At the beginning of April, a trainee telephone operator within The Police gave her our number once again, despite the fact that it ex directory, and she has been ringing more or less constantly ever since - a total of 117 times in the 3 months until I went to Iceland on 4th July. I think any reasonable person would agree that this is not reasonable at all, especially since many of these calls have been late at night, or in the early hours, and many more still have been abusive in the extreme.

Things came to a head while I was in Iceland, as she kept hassling poor Coran, ringing up to seven times each day asking to speak to me, when she knew full well I was overseas. When she rang at 2am this was for Coran the last straw. He telephoned the hospital back (she was at that time an inmate at the psychiatric ward) and informed the staff that if she rang again he would telephone the Police. An hour later she rang again, and so Coran did what he had to do.

The Police were very good, coming round to the house the following day and spending almost an hour with Coran, noting all the details. The end result was that they advised us to block her number, which very reluctantly we have now done - four numbers in fact, since she has both a mobile and landline and sometimes phones from her so-called boyfriends house, as well as the hospital. The only contact we have had with her since this time has been through her care team.

In time we hope to arrange a meeting between the three different parties explaining our actions and setting down some boundaries for the future. The plan is to use the carrot and the stick, giving her an incentive to change and to treat us with the respect that we deserve. We are not then shutting the door completely, but saying to her that if she wants us in her life then she has to work within our boundaries. If she is prepared to do that and shows that she is willing to change, then maybe just maybe, our relationship can be salvaged. The rest then is up to her.