If you haven’t read my previous post Doctor’s Diagnosis one, two… then head over to read that first, otherwise this post will not make much sense!
So are you all caught up? Good. Here comes the rest of the drama…
A ward with the oldies
After being admitted and leaving A&E I was taken up to a ward. It was the early hours of the morning and I expected to have some painkillers and get a fairly good nights sleep.
How wrong was I?
I’d been asleep for all of about 5 minutes before I woke up to what I thought was a newborn baby. But this wasn’t a maternity or postnatal ward… That was at the other side of the hospital!
The old lady in the bed opposite cried and it sounded like a baby. She didn’t talk about had old sorts of tubes. There was lots of drama with her and the ward was not a quiet one!
I soon realised that I was probably the youngest in our bay by at least 60 years!
The Doctors Rounds
After such a bad night I was really hoping the Doctor would come round, and tell me that they could give me something, and send me home.
How wrong was I again?
The Doctor came round, examined me, asked lots of questions and told me I’d be in until at least Monday. Not the news I was expecting, but at least they would be able to help me. I needed more painkillers. Unsurprisingly, paracetamol and ibuprofen was not enough. I was put on another fluid drip and Tramadol.
The first day in hospital flew by in a blur of visitors, fairly decent hospital food and an exhausted mummy at the end of the day. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there.
I got worse, I needed more painkillers, they didn’t send me for a scan. The doctor I saw on Sunday morning was rude and didn’t listen to me and I ended up in tears. They told me I couldn’t see Alfie. However they’d not told me that the day before yet apparently I was well enough to look after myself at home.
After Dan ringing the hospital and speaking to a nurse, I was told that the doctor had changed his mind and I should stay. Talk about a roller coaster ride of emotions. Until they decided I shouldn’t be on that ward any more and they moved me.
Was it a blessing in disguise? The treatment I got on the new ward was a bit better. They took me more seriously, I got more pain relief (ORAL MORPHINE!) that actually helped and the next day I was sent home.
Getting Worse and ringing an Ambulance
Four days I lasted at home before I couldn’t handle the pain any more. You’d think that being on morphine would have helped. But I was barely eating or drinking. Swallowing was a no go and the pain was unbearable. However, I wanted to be at home.
Would you want to go back to the hospital you’d just spent three nights in? No, me neither!
Unfortunately, when your body tells you something is wrong, really wrong, you need to listen to it.
I got the most horrendous stomach/chest pain I have ever had. I tried to cope through the pains. But then I couldn’t move and it was stopping me doing anything.
I had to ring an ambulance.
Now, if you’ve ever had to ring an ambulance they ask some scary questions. They are trying to determine several things, whether you are having a heart attack and need an ambulance with blue flashing lights or whether you are able to wait a while.
Clearly they didn’t think I needed blue flashing lights to the hospital, but the ambulance was at my house 4 minutes after hanging up the phone.
I explained everything that had happened previously and my new symptoms. They, unsuccessfully for a while, tried to put a cannula in so they could give me more morphine. They did all sorts of tests;
- Blood pressure – High
- Heart Rate – Through the roof
- Blood Sugar – Low
- Pain on a scale of 1 to 10 = 10
After all of that there wasn’t much hope of them helping at home, and me not being taken to A&E.
Dan needs to come out of work
After ringing an ambulance, I knew that I had to contact Dan somehow. I was in no fit state to try and talk to the receptionist at his school. Plus, I knew he was teaching all day, so no chance for him to answer his phone and I didn’t know how long the ambulance would be.
After texting a friend, who knew where Dan worked, I didn’t really check my phone. I couldn’t, I wasn’t able to concentrate and I was in too much pain. I just hoped that she’d got hold of him.
Luckily when I was walking to the ambulance he rang, and I was able to tell him to meet me at A&E.
I felt so guilty at pulling Dan out of work. But I know that he would never have forgiven me if I didn’t and I was there on my own! Sometimes you family and your health is way more important than work.
I love the NHS but A&E is crazy
As that heading suggests, I do love the NHS. I’m not sure where I, or my family, would be without it. But my gosh it is crazy at the moment.
Have you seen on the news recently that people are waiting longer than the 4 hours they say in A&E? Or that when you have been seen in A&E that there are no beds or that you’ll be in the corridor waiting for treatment?
Unfortunately, that is true.
The doctors admitted me again. They had beds, but nowhere for the beds to go. The bed I was on, along with four or five others, was in the corridor. Nurses and Doctors looked exhausted and run ragged. What is happening?!
How long would I be staying in this time? Would they try to fob me off like last time?
More in the final post all about my hospital admission coming up…
Mummy Fox xx
