I just didn’t expect this – yes, I have unexpectedly found myself in hospital for a couple of days. This last happened in 2018 at the start of my blog and that turned out to be a life changing milestone. I’m definitely not looking for anything like that again. Nevertheless I can’t avoid a wry look at it, quite a few surprises along the way.
~~ Written while in hospital and published a few days after discharge ~~
Firstly I suppose I ought to tell you I’m okay, plus the whys and wherefores of what has happened.
I have learnt that if you mutter “chest pains” anywhere near the NHS all the warning bells ring and blue lights flash before you find yourself in hospital. May I add I reckon I’m okay, so there is no need for any of my readers to worry.
As I type this, I’m sitting in a little outdoor space at the hospital. It is quite nice, warm and sunny and definitely beats lolling around in the ward all the time. So here I am, in my pyjamas, plonked at a picnic bench on some seriously naff artificial grass in the hospital grounds.
It is also the secret place NHS workers and poorly looking patients come for a crafty cigarette or roll a joint. Some of the staff look awkward for being there smoking, kind of guilty looking. Others look totally hacked off and having some nicotine is their way of coping. There are a couple of patients, one woman in a wheelchair and looking very poorly is smoking continuously and looked very sad, scrawny and I wondered if she was at the end of the road.
Back inside, I have met quite a few characters since I’ve been here and a busy hospital provides its fair share of surprises. Firstly the young funny hospital Doctor I encountered yesterday afternoon while I was still in the Accident & Emergency department, or ER or ED as it is also called. All these acronyms are set to throw people like me.
She wanted me move to a quiet observation room where I could be hooked up to a monitor.
“I’m not sure how this works” she said, something I didn’t expect a young, bright Doctor to confess. She was looking to connect me up to various wires to check my blood pressure, oxygen levels with a zillion wires stuck onto my chest. So she decided to try it on herself and then said “if you know how this works, don’t just lie there and make me look so totally unprofessional”. I confessed I didn’t know but hesitated from suggesting we could work some of it out together.
“Speaking of being unprofessional” she said “do you always look that colour?”
”Er, I think I always look like this”
”No it’s just that you’re looking a bit flushed”
”Am I?”
I went onto ask if there was a mirror, so I could answer her question. She said there wouldn’t be a mirror in the department and so she took her phone out of her pocket and took a photo of me and showed it to me. I said I’m normally just a little disheveled and that seemed to satisfy her. I couldn’t’t really see as I didn’t have my glasses. A nurse wandered in and was asked to connect me up to a monitor screen. She looked at the mess of wires, all tangled up and said “who on earth has messed this up?” and promptly looked at me. ME! The Doctor looked embarrassed and told the nurse to give her a print out after 5 minutes, after she’d had a breath of fresh air. We all knew what she meant by that.
At that point someone else came in and said some bloods were needed. Where does this expression “bloods” come from? Surely they mean “blood samples”? Why don’t they say so, perhaps this is another example of the modern NHS lingo that I’m needing to learn.
She then asked me, in a very chirpy way, how I was and how’s the running going? I asked if we knew each other and yes we did, from a few years back and I hadn’t recognised her. She went onto say I had very nice veins, perfect for drawing some blood and then she escorted the porter who took me to the ward. I was still lying on the bed with lots of wires attached to me as we breezed through the various corridors, around corners at top speed, hoping nobody else was coming the opposite way. I think the porter enjoyed this top speed dash. I was then in Ward 4, some kind of an assessment ward for men. Everyone else looked really poorly and I told myself me being there was all a big mistake.
Mind you, before all that there was quite a bit of drama. When I was sitting in the initial waiting room, another patient was sitting opposite me. She was Asian and I’d say in her twenties. She started to groan and then slumped against the wall next to her seat. I didn’t react immediately but then her head flopped back and the groan changed into difficult breathing. She looked very poorly.
So I got up and walked a few steps towards her, asking if she needed any help. She didn’t respond and so I wave my arms and shouted to attract the attention of a member of staff, right on the other side of the waiting room. Everyone looked at me and then instantly looked the other way. Thankfully the member of staff came over, tried to rouse the patient and then ran over to the reception desk.
Some kind of alarm was set off and before I knew it Doctors and Nurses came running from all directions. Someone was sent for oxygen and another for a trolley. Staff fussed around, more staff looked and watched while I was evicted from my seat.
After the patient was taken off, the first member of staff came over to me and thanked me, saying I’d done the right thing by calling her over. I do hope that patient is okay now.
And then the man in Police custody. He was, shall we say, rather vocal in expressing his dislike of the system as he yelled, shouted and f-this and f-that as he was carried away. I hadn’t seen anyone being carried like him before. His hands were handcuffed behind his back and he had straps around his legs and these made it very easy to simply carry him out. He was lying flat, face down and at knee height. He must have known he was beaten and yet he continued to struggle but it was very futile. All in a days work, I guess.
Meanwhile, back to the Doctors, there’s been quite a few others. Ward rounds have certainly changed over the years. Long gone are the white coats, Brylcream look and the enterage of junior Doctors, or at least those who aren’t on strike. I have learned that the scruffier the Doctor, the more senior he is. I say “he” because the female Doctors were either dressed in scrubs or looked very well dressed.
The Doctor I saw today was casually dressed himself, to say the very least. Jeans barely hanging onto his hips, shirt only half tucked in. His hair was a mess, probably as bad as mine and he hadn’t shaved for a few days. I wondered how long he’d been on duty, or perhaps he always looked like that. Alongside him was a junior Doctor. He was smart but casual. He looked in his twenties and I wondered he was an aspiring trendy hip medic himself. Hard to get a steer, he simply wrote down what he was told and obligingly nodded to say he understood everything.
So here I am surrounded characters here in the assessment ward. Of course the nurses are attentive and you can occasionally see their mischievous side but only when the ward manager is out of sight. They have carefully gone through most of my pricked fingers to get a tiny drop to check my blood sugars (they say this is important with cardiac things) and they’re all fine and always good to know I’m not anywhere near being diabetic.
Then we have a little guessing game when it comes to my blood pressure (which was taken every 2-3 hours, including at night. I normally get it right and this amuses them as I say “137 over 89”. I’m getting better at guessing my temperature, though that is harder for me as we’re talking tenths of a degree. I think they have given up monitoring the portable ECG which has fewer sticky patches on my chest. Mind you, with the number of patches going on and off I will have had a thorough chest wax, albeit slightly “patchy”.
The following day I was meant to have some more tests but these weren’t very forthcoming. The junior Doctor came to see me, this time without the hip hipster or his clipboard. He told me my case had been discussed between a number of the medics. They had concluded I could go home, if that’s what I’d like. Too right it was!!!!
He went onto explain they had discounted the serious things, such as a heart attack (which I kind of reckoned anyway). Plus many of the junior Doctors are on strike and we were approaching a Bank Holiday weekend where nothing would really happen, so I could go home.
That was not before I was given some more tablets to take, including some beta blockers. Now these were new to me and I asked what they were for and why I needed them. Apparently my heart was beating too fast and these tablets would calm things down. Plus they also gave me some other medication to cover all eventualities, just in case.
All good. I called Rachel to come and collect me, I got dressed just in time for my evening meal to arrive which I duly scoffed. In the next bed was a former Hindu who had been converted to become a Jehovah’s Witness, a JW. We discussed our respective faith and tried to convince each other that we were right. It was all very cordial and then it was time to say farewell to Ward 4 and all the funny characters in the hospital.
Now I’m so thankful to be at home. While I’m feeling calm about the situation, I do feel a bit fragile. Yesterday I was finding it hard going, just trying to wash Hannah’s car and walk upstairs. I took my blood pressure and it was 89/58 with a very low pulse rate. I was thinking that was a shade too low and probably explained why I was feeling so lousy. I got in touch with my GP (via the dreadful e-consult system) and she helpfully called back. She said the tablets were too strong and to halve the dose, plus stop taking the other blood pressure tablets until things settle down. Since then I have been adjusting to these new tablets and I’m feeling better.
All a bit of a crazy experience, most unexpected.
Related: flip I’m in hospital, April 2018
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