Long and rambling post. Sorry. Around eight in the morning on Thursday I woke up desperately needing to reach the toilet. Made it there bouncing off the walls, was dizzy for some reason, diarrhoea then throwing up in the sink them more diarrhoea then throwing up again. Woke up four hours later, more diarrhoea, more throwing up, so dizzy I had to hold on to the walls to avoid falling over. Somehow found my phone, called emergency services and an ambulance was sent. I had to get to the front door and open it for them, which involved going backwards down two flights of stairs handing on for grim death as the world did cartwheels. Got to the front door, opened it, fell over and the ambulance crew found me there a few minutes later. They kindly waited till I stopped throwing up again and helped me onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. Side note, lottery win or funds to start my R&D, design a suspension system for ambulances that isn’t like being in a rowboat in a cat 5 storm. They got me to the hospital and I didn’t throw up in the ambulance, that happened just after they handed me over to the nurses and was the only time any of the nurses lost their cheerful happy to help ness. The one poor nurse saw me start to throw up and handed me one of those cardboard trays but was unfortunately still holding it when I threw up in the bowl, over myself and unfortunately over her. Anyway I was in A&E and this started a shocking display of overworked staff doing their best (and their best is very very good) and a hospital system that means the Nurses and Doctors succeed in spite of the system rather than because of it. One nurse set me up for an EKG, but the machine wasn’t in the room so she went next door to borrow theirs, that was also missing, both had been borrowed by another department and one was eventually returned. She tried a different test, a box with a handle on the top and a dead battery, so many people need it the battery is always flat she explained. Another nurse tried to take blood samples, my blood was apparently oozing rather than flowing so once he got a hole in me where he could find blood it took a while to get samples. Then I was fitted with tubes in my arms, several tries to find blood again and the first blood test came back, severe dehydration, So the first intravenous fluid pack was plugged in, the first of seven liters of intravenous fluids I would receive over 30 hours. Then I was moved to a room somewhere, wasn’t entirely coherent but it was up a lift and along corridors, more blood test and even more holes in me, another fluid pack in my arm. The doctor arrived after eight hours, he was the only one available and was seeing patients based on priority so he kept getting delayed by more urgent cases, he checked me, told me it was one of several things but all were forms of gastro enteritis and I would be kept on fluids, Then he left, more patients waiting to be seen. Checks, tests, prodding and poking through the night, couldn’t even drink water without throwing up but all the fluid packs seemed to work eventually, and I stopped feeling like I was crawling through a desert with my mouth full of sand by Friday morning. I was able to drink some water Friday morning, but the toast made me heave just looking at it. More tests and a new shift of nurses, all cheerful and willing, even when cleaning up from me throwing up or measuring my wee in those cardboard bottles. Still very dizzy, even sitting up in the bed left me falling randomly, I tried to stand but that left me collapsing in a random direction, going from upright to a 45-degree angle in an instant, trying to walk involved clinging to a wall with my eyes closed because the room was spinning. Then the first doctor telling me I was to be discharged after lunch. More tests and then a nurse telling me about being discharged and asking how I was going to get home, I asked about being so dizzy I couldn’t stand, and she promised to ask a doctor. Then an orderly asking me about how I was going to get home? The last fluid pack and blood tests and I was told I was no longer severely dehydrated and now just dehydrated. Then a junior doctor telling me I would be going home after lunch and asking how I planned to get there. By this point I had explained four times that I had no money, no cards, no wallet, the ambulance crew had picked me up off the floor at home, I had the clothes on my back, my phone and my keys because they had been next to the phone. Lunch arrived, the wrong lunch but I didn’t care, I ate two chips and threw up again. An orderly came in, I said please take the food away and he again mentioned going home. I tried to visit the toilet, it was three steps across the corridor, it took a nurse, an orderly and a wheelchair to get me that far and I still nearly fell twice. Then a hospital administrator arrived to tell me I was being discharged and to ask how I was going to get home. I explained yet again, no wallet, no money, no credit on my phone (I used the last alerting work I wasn’t going to be in). She then asked was I on any form of benefits, I said yeas, Why? She said I could probably get the bus fare reimbursed. At this point I lost my temper, I didn’t shout or swear but I was angry, how the bloody hell was I supposed to get the bus fare repaided when I didn’t have the money in the first place? She walked away while I was still talking. Then I heard a conversation from down the corridor, two nurses, the walls were thin enough I could clearly hear them. A patient on a stretcher in a corridor downstairs, desperately needing a room, one room should be available shortly he would have to wait. They didn’t say which room, but I knew. So I made it to the door, grabbed a junior doctor who was passing, gave him my phone and pointed out the number of a neighbour with a car and told him if they could get me some crutches and the lift I would get out of the room. A few minutes latter the administrator arrived, she looked so relieved and happy, the neighbour would be here at six, she had arranged for someone to bring crutches to the room and fit me to them and had even arranged a porter to wheel me down to the front door. She was so happy to get me out so someone else could get the room. With crutches, leading forward and with legs and arms widespread like some alien stilt monster I could stagger without falling over, my lift arrived, and I was off, slowly and unsteadily but I got home eventually. Getting back up those flights of stairs was, interesting, and then I was collapsing in my own bed. Just getting up the stairs caused me to throw up again, but I was home, some music on and in my own bed. There was no music or radio in hospital, no one to talk to apart from busy nurses and without a credit card I couldn’t use the pay to use radio and television in the room. Anything up to a week for the virus to pass, then I can properly rehydrate which should solve the dizziness and let me walk without hanging onto the walls or needing crutches. Then recovering from the virus as no solid food for several days now, not a diet I would recommend though. So out of Action for at least a week yet. Side note, no way will I be fit enough for a four-hour train trip, sorry Hoz. There are two great institutes of state in Britain that exist to dal with and support the poor, the weak, the vulnerable and the sick. The DWP and the NHS I have long experience with the DWP and hate IDS and his replacement with a deep and emotional passion. But with the NHS it has always been an intellectual hatred of what Jeremy Cunt and the Tories have done and are doing, now I have the same emotional hatred because it’s not just stories for me anymore. I looked into the face of a woman who was so desperate to get a bed for a patient that she was sending me out without knowing I could even walk or get home. The face of the NHS in 2018, staff so desperate to get beds for new patients that they queue up to push out existing patients. Now was I in a better condition than the person waiting for the room, probably yes. But even I had no idea if I could make it home, even with a lift, and yet I went home anyway. Because I had looked into the face of a woman, I had looked into the face of the NHS. Not the overworked doctors and nurses, but of people so desperate to get beds available for new patients that they were actually happy to have people leave even when it wasn’t certain those people could make it home. I read a post not long ago that compared good Tories to bits of corn in a turd. That is wrong. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD TORY ! ! Every Tory MP who by holding their seat as a Tory keeps the party in power is guilty of every cruelty and abuse the Tories perform in power. Every Tory MP who obeys the party whip or bullying or blackmail is an accessory to the Governments cruelty. Every Tory MP who votes with the government is an active and willing accomplice. There is no such thing as a good Tory. Kind, decent, honourable, caring. These words are lies when applied to any man or woman who remains a willing and supportive member of the Tory party. Our system, our political system is broken beyond repair, it cannot be fixed because any change to the system that leaves the political class in place will fail as the corruption and cruelty will quickly return. We need to remove our entire political class, not just every Tory, but the Lib dems who proved themselves in 2010 and Labour, an opposition party supposedly, where half of them spend their time fighting each other, the other half, the leadership or supporting the Tories. How do we get rid of them all, political force, actual force, at this point I don’t know? But next year, if we crash out with no deal, nine years of austerity and if we get even half of the worst-case Brexit there is going to be widespread anger. Maybe the Tories can blame someone else and turn the mob away, probably not. Then what. There will always be some who will remain loyal, duty, honour or just serving the elected government against the mob and anarchy. Always someone will it turn a gun on the masses. Will it come to that, god I hope not, but at this stage I see darkness, this cannot end well. What the Tories have done, are doing, this cannot be forgiven. I looked into the face of the NHS, a woman relieved and happy that I was going to stagger out and free a room for another patient, she was so happy to have another room available. That is what we have come down to, doctors and staff all but begging people to stagger or crawl out of hospital to make room for the next person. Sorry if this is long and rambling, still dizzy and typing in batches. Two days in hospital and I saw two very different worlds. The medical staff, and the hospital itself, the NHS trying to help people and at the same time having to kick them out to make room for more people. Resource starved but making do. Again sorry for rambling. |
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