Goodbye St Marks, Hello QMC

I’ve made the huge decision to transfer all my medical care from St Marks in London up to Queens Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham. St Marks is the UK’s leading specialist bowel hospital and I’ve been a patient there for the last 8 years and despite living in Nottingham for almost 6 of those years I have continued to travel down for clinic appointments and tests. But all of my hospital admissions have been at QMC and this has meant that over the last 5 years the team in Nottingham has patched me up when I’ve had emergency inpatient stays and then handed me back to St Marks for follow up. This has resulted in me effectively becoming trapped in a no mans land where the team at St Marks never see how truly unwell I am and the team in Nottingham see it but can’t treat me because I’m technically not their patient.

The last 12-18 months I’ve become more and more unwell which has made travelling independently down to London almost impossible and then when you add in Covid-19 it has become harder still. I can’t drive down myself because it’s too far (I get tired driving more than 20-30 minutes at a time) and Hubby refuses to let me use public transport because I’m in the high risk vulnerable group that’s been shielding during the pandemic. So I’ve decided that it makes sense to have all my treatment and follow up locally even if that means leaving my beloved team of specialists at St Marks. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while but I‘ve just not had the courage to make the move. But having had so many admissions recently the gastro ward at QMC has become like a second home of late and I have every faith that the team there will look after me now that I’m officially theirs.

Whilst this feels a bit scary I also feel like I’ve taken back some control and that I’m actively working towards getting better instead of being passive in the process and hoping that one of the hospitals would take the lead. The nurses on the ward in Nottingham are amazing and I know that no matter how ill I get they will always look after me but it will take time to develop the trust in the consultants. One of my big fears is that if I end up needing surgery will the surgeons in Nottingham be the best people to carry it out? They won’t have the volume of cases that the surgeons at St Marks do and so may not have the same experience and surgical outcomes. But I‘m trying not to let ‘what if’s’ make decisions for me and I will cross that bridge when I get to it. I have met the colorectal surgeon during one of my recent NHS ‘mini breaks‘ and he has said because of my complicated history he wouldn’t want to operate on me unless it was absolutely necessary so at least I know he’s not wanting to rush into anything.

I don’t know what the future will hold but already I have an endoscopy and an outpatient appointment planned over the coming weeks so I’m guaranteed two trips out of the house at least!

Caravan wankers

Over the last few years when I was stuck in hospital for long periods of time Hubby and I would talk about what we would do if I ever got ‘better’. During some of those times when I was so, so poorly the idea of just being at home for more than a few weeks at a time seemed like a far fetched dream. But I’m currently living that dream! And obviously I know I will never ‘get better’ but for these purposes ‘getting better’ meant being well enough to be at home, not in pain 24/7 and not in bed all day, every day. Not too much to ask now is it?? So in our talks, once I was at home and was well enough to do the real basic things like watch Big Fella play football, Big Girl play netball, go to Tesco, play with the dog, go to the cinema etc one thing kept cropping up. We would love to have a motor home and tour round the country. We talked about the places we would like to visit, how much Buddy the dog would love it and how it would give us a chance to reconnect with each other. But...

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Trying to get vaccinated

When I was an inpatient recently I asked about getting the Covid vaccine because I’m classed as Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (ECV). Apparently other patients on the ward had gotten theirs but I was told that it wouldn’t be possible and that I would have to get in touch with my GP. Apparently staff within the hospital had been using the system to book vaccinations for friends and family by saying that they were an inpatient and as a result they were now only vaccinating staff who could show their ID badge. I can understand that people are worried about the people that they love but to think that people abused the system in that way makes my blood boil. So when I was discharged I rang the GP surgery and was told that they had absolutely nothing to do with the vaccination programme and that I would need to get in touch with NHS England. So I called NHS England and spoke to an adviser who told me that according to the system I wasn’t eligible for a vaccination. I explain...

More than just a bag lady

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