I'm going to have to rush this one, I've got until my work outfit's dry to type.
But it shouldn't take long anyway, because all I want to talk about here is my first hospital, the local one.
Last time, I said that I'd gotten to a&e and hadn't even been there five minutes before I got into the examining room. The first thing they did was give me 3mg of morphine. I was still doubled over, crying. So they gave me another 7 ... and it was wonderful. I'm not huge on recreational drugs, but I get why people do morphine. It made me feel like I could sleep. All the pain ... it didn't go away, but it numbed. Like when Dumbledore gave Harry that potion to help him sleep after he saw Cedric die and Voldemort come back to life, it kept it all at bay and I felt I could just sleep.
But they didn't want me to sleep. They had to ask questions. They asked about my drinking habits, and ran some blood tests (fun talk there. 'How often do you drink?' 'About three or four times a year.' 'How much do you drink?' 'Maybe 5 or 6 drinks?' 'When was your last drink?' ... 'Monday'. I'd treated myself to some apple sourz and lemonade. One tiny glass. And I didn't even finish it.) They said they had to be sure I wasn't some alcoholic before they could entertain the thought it was gallstones.
They said they'd keep me overnight, for observation, and fitted me with a catheter (almost as bad as an examination when pregnant and contracting) and wheeled me onto their assessment ward. Apparently, I got the last bed that night.
This is where time really blurred for me. The following felt like at least a week, but was just short of 4 days. I can't offer a real perspective, I was out of it for a long time.
So at first, I was kept nil by mouth. That means I didn't eat or drink anything, and the antibiotics they had to give me were fitted up with this canular (think that's the right word) in my arm, along with my IV drip. It was a mixed ward, and my bed was next to the central walkway. I didn't sleep much. They took bloods early in the morning, and kept coming back for different blood tests, blood gases, blood cultures ... because my biliruben (blood fats) levels were so high, and my pancreas inflamed, I was having blood sugar tests and only allowed a saline drip, not a glucose one (they gave me glucose once, and someone got yelled at by my bed). First day, I had an ultrasound. The next day (or the one after that?) I had an endoscopy (a tube down my throat, with camera and oincers attached, so they could clear any gallstones blocking any pipes). I passed out during that. I had x-rays too, and the usual blood pressure/temperature checks.
The day of the endoscopy, I got moved to a woman's ward. When I was in the endoscopy room, I came too long enough to throw up blood. When I got back to my room, and came around again, my sister was there for visiting hours, and I did it again. She kept trying to make me laugh, like in the mixed ward, the man opposite me had the shakes and she was like 'is he masturbating?' and when they cleared the catheter bag it was 'are they taking the piss?' but it hurt to laugh. I didn't have the air in me. And I missed my son - visiting hours were for 6 hours of the day, and for over 16s only. He was only 11 months.
I remember sleeping through a fair bit of the day, because I couldn't sleep at night. They kept a few overhead lights on so the nurses could watch us and make notes (the nurse on duty sat in the room at a desk with her files). The light and people in general watching me sleep kept me up.
As the days went on, the doctors took more and more blood. And my arms started to swell. I had a second canular, and a bag of blood, and another bag of platelets, fitted to them. At any one point I had five different baggies going into my arms. I couldn't hold the book I had with me to read it - The Half-Blood Prince, of all things to be reading. Not being able to see my son or read was the worst of it, emotionally.
As it was getting difficult for them to take blood from my arms, they tried my feet. They had no blood. So they went for the femoral line. The second day they did this, the nurse who tried my foot laughed when the needle fell out, when I told her it wouldn't work and I didn't want it because it was unneccesary pain and couldn't they get the doctor to tap my leg vein again? She said she had to show she tried. So, swollen painful foot.
I had to use the commode after a few days, and that made the nurses freak. They started asking about my cycle - I didn't know it, but there was blood everywhere. I couldn't sit on the commode long anyway, I couldn't stop coughing.
The day before my transfer, the head of haematology came to visit me. That should have been the big warning sign there, but it wasn't. I was feeling too sorry for myself. He explained in laments terms why they kept taking my blood, and showed me this slide with a sample of my blood on it. Even now, I can't decide if it was orange or grey. I've decided it was both at once. I needed the laments term though, I couldn't understand much. They weren't telling me much until he came along (this was the day mum overheard the nurses discussing leukaemia by the way). So even though it hurt and I was fed up, I let them keep taking blood, because I trusted him.
But the next day, I was aching to see my boy. I was practicing telling mum I wanted to be discharged come visiting hours. One nurse could see I was tearful, and saw a picture I had of my boy, and started asking questions, and I burst into tears. Another nurse saw and said it'd ruin my stats, and I wanted to scream at her - I didn't care about anything but him right then. But the heamatology expert came again, and explained that there was a treatment for me, and why it was best we start straight away. I couldn't wait to leave the ward I was on so agreed. Then he let it drop I'd be going in an ambulance.
So he called my mum and laughed-at-my-foot asked if I wanted a nurse with me. I was bitter towards her so said no, I didn't want to give her a free ride to london. But then mum said she was coming and she started going 'but she didn't want anyone!' - I wanted to hit her so badly. If I could move off the bed. But then the ambulance and my mum showed up and the Sister on the ward said she had to come, so I got bundled into the ambulance and blue-lighted to London.
And I'll leave it there because I'm now running late.
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