Hospital Rant

I was gonna post this sooner but I was so exhausted, mind fucked and frustrated it probably would have been a garbled mess.  Well, moreso than what this will be now.

So my little girl was discharged from hospital yesterday after being in for over 24 hours.

She hadn’t been well through the night or the morning before I left for work.

I was in work when she was rushed in so had to leave in a panic and walk home then walk to the hospital.  It worked out to be 3.05 miles approximately – I was fucking knackered and aching from the trek.

Initially it was believed she had meningitis due to her hands and feet being ice cold and the rest of her was burning up – apparently these are symptoms of the illness…

When I arrived, she wouldn’t drink yet we had to get a urine sample from her. Her temperature was through the roof and she was clearly not herself.

After being there for 3-4 hours, no one could tell us what was wrong.  We had been told to get her off to sleep as they wanted to check her stomach for any issues and we still needed to get a urine sample.  Eventually we got her off to sleep and then “Dev”, a junior doctor walked in and started to ask questions.  He asked how old she was and we said 22 months and he looked at the notes he had and scribbled something out.  He then went to examine Seren and started prodding her saying, “Ellie, Ellie”.  We had already told him her name before this and when we told him what the previous doctor had said we were to do he side-stepped towards the door, Lauren went to pick Seren up and cuddle her as she had started crying and with her back turned he had a look of panic on his face before quickly exiting the room and heading for the room next door.

Clearly he had the wrong patient and we were enraged as there was no way she was going to go back to sleep.  Plus she wasn’t drinking fluid so we still couldn’t get a urine sample like they had requested. We were left for a long time before I went to find out what was going on, ask for some food for her and ask when we will see the doctor we had been expecting in the first place.

Due to her temperature and the fact the hospital was absolutely boiling (no wonder the NHS is fucked; turn the heating down and you can hire more doctors and/or nurses!) and then having nurses coming in to check her temperature and pulse/blood pressure, she would then scream for ages and just as we’d get her settles…they’d do more checks.

Eventually we were moved to another ward and were left alone again for over an hour before I went to check what was happening.  Some time later, and I mean a while, the doctor came back and made a lame apology for the junior doctor that fucked up and delayed Seren’s diagnosis.  Seren’s blood pressure was high…no doubt because she was being traumatised each time they did checks on her and because of this combined with the unbelievable heat in there her temperature was always through the roof.

Eventually, after constantly checking with the nurses to find out what was happening and if Seren had to stay in (we hadn’t had a chance to pack any items for an overnight stay) we were told the Registrar would be round to check and advise if we can take her home or not but it wouldn’t be until 9pm.  Some time after 10pm the Registrar finally turned up just as Seren was having her medicine and started choking and spewed it back up.  As a result, the Registrar wanted to keep her in.

We still didn’t have much of a clue as to what exactly was wrong with her.

Shortly after this, I left to go home as I was exhausted and starving.  I got home and didn’t eat anything – just went straight to bed and had a shit nights sleep waking almost every hour.

About 9am the next morning, Lauren rang me to tell me there was still no news and asking me to take some stuff up when I went back up to see them.

I got there and spent over 30 mins trying to find a parking space, moving from one car park to the next and failed to find a space so I ended up leaving the hospital grounds and parking over the road by some houses – a 5-7 minute walk from the entrance to the wing where Seren was.

Needless to say I had a fantastic start to my day – parking in a car park is stressful enough for me but this pushed me over the edge and I’d only been awake properly for about an hour.

I made it up to the ward and Seren was ready to leave, she was waiting for her medicine and we’d be gone.  When I arrived Lauren had been told it should be 20-30 minutes.

2 hours later Lauren checked with the nurses and the senior doctor that had seen Seren a couple of times the day before did a few checks and said he was concerned about her breathing and wanted a chest X-Ray so we then had to march all the way down there and back up – the results were fine and he said we could go when the medicine was prepped.

In the end she was diagnosed with a severe ear and throat infection although there were other concerns the doctors highlighted. My initial reaction when they told us of the ear and throat infection was “we went through all this fucking torment for this and they could’ve told us this sooner instead of us thinking the worst”.

Another 2 hours passed and we were still there.  Lauren checked with the nurses and they said they would find out and get back to us.

We waited and waited and after another hour, I went back out and asked again.  The meds were ready so the nurse went to collect them and 20 minutes later she came in.  But one item was missing.  She went to check on this and came back another 20 minutes later and told us to go to the pharmacy down the hall to collect the missing pain relief.

We collected all of Seren’s belongings and headed to collect her medicine and had to wait another 15 minutes.

Finally we could leave but not before a trek to the car.  Lauren laden with the bags of Seren’s clothes, toys and other items and me carrying a bag and Seren.

And, after a long haul over the span of 2 days, it was over.  But we were still worried as we need to keep an eye on her as there’s a few things the doctors were concerned about but deemed it safe to let her go but should we notice anything untoward we’re to take her straight back up.

The overall amount of time spent up in Prince Charles Hospital to date is unbelievable – you’d think they’d want to make their jobs easier by keeping people posted and not keeping people in for longer than is necessary to free up beds etc. Also, the fact that, by keeping non-ill people in for too long…they ultimately become ill – I’ve now got a cold/on-set of the flu because of that place.

That is all.