Hubby rang the ward to let them know I wasn’t well and to see if I could be admitted straight to the ward without the need to go in via A&E but they didn’t have a bed. We got to A&E about 3.30pm and usually they take me straight through to majors and get me on a trolley but this time they left me sat in a wheelchair in the waiting room to be triaged by a nurse. I was in so much pain I was sobbing and because of covid restrictions Hubby wasn’t allowed to stay with me so I was there all on my own. At one point I needed to go to the loo and the lovely security guard found a nurse to take me but then she left me and I was stuck in the loo for about 20 minutes before I managed to get someone’s attention and have them wheel me back to the waiting room.
I was finally seen by the triage nurse around 6.30pm. She took one look at me and went to get a trolley and took me straight round to majors. She said I should never have been left in the waiting room like that. Although A&E didn’t have the same number of patients as when I was in a few weeks ago they were chronically understaffed and the nurses and doctors were rushing round like headless chickens. The nurse in charge of the part of A&E I was moved to said that they were 15 nurses short that night shift! It’s just crazy. She said that she feels sick as she drives into work and wonders before each shift if someone will die because of the staffing issues. It’s completely unreasonable to expect our medical professionals to work in these conditions and I can’t imagine what it’s doing to their physical and mental health.
I asked and asked to be given pain relief and anti-sickness meds but first I had to be seen by a doctor for them to prescribe them. And of course the wait to see the doctors was ridiculously long so I was left for hours in pain. Eventually I saw the doctor and then the next obstacle was getting a cannula in to administer the meds. One nurse came with a green cannula and I laughed and told her there was no way she would get a green in my veins. She’d be lucky to get a pink in as most of the time they struggle with blues and occasionally have to use yellow paediatric cannulas.
She tried a couple of times with pinks but couldn’t get one in so went to get someone else to have a go. The bloke that came was the same guy that managed to cannulate me a few weeks ago and he took his time to try to find a decent vein instead of just stabbing at the first one. After a couple of attempts he managed to get one in the base of my thumb and yes, it was as painful as it sounds. Because my veins are so scarred from the repeated cannula and blood taking he couldn’t get it to go all the way in so it was half hanging out but it flushed and was better than no cannula so he taped it down and we both hoped it would last. At least now I had a cannula kind of in I could finally get pain relief and anti sickness.
I was lucky to be moved to F22, the gastro ward, at 1am. Last time I had to go onto the surgical ward first while I waited for a bed on F22 but somehow a bed magically appeared since Hubby had rung them at 2.30pm. When I got into the ward the nurse was suprised to see me as they hadn’t had confirmation of a negative covid swab and I hadn’t been clerked. This meant I wasn’t on the ward system and none of the admission paperwork had been done including my drug chart meaning that the nurses on the ward wouldn’t be able to give me any medication. The Porter rang A&E who said that the covid swab had come back negative but when the ward nurse later checked the system the results weren’t in yet so they had told a porky. They were obviously keen to move patients out of A&E to relieve pressures down there but the nurse in the ward was annoyed as it meant that they couldn’t care for me properly. They had to put a call out to the one doctor covering all the wards in the hospital to come and clerk me and fill out my drug chart. And when the doctor came they obviously didn’t read my notes (probably because they were short of time) and wrote me up for oral meds when I needed IV because of the nausea and vomiting. I knew there was no point in the nurse asking the doctor to come back as I could be waiting for hours and hours so I decided to grit my teeth and wait until the doctors came on the ward in the morning.
Luckily though the on-call surgical consultant came to see me about 4am and after she had examined me I asked her to change my drug chart. So even though she’d woken me up it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After getting some pain relief I was able to nod off again until I was rudely awoken at 7.30am by an agency nurse asking what I wanted for breakfast. All the regular nurses on the ward know that 1) I don’t do breakfast and 2) I don’t do early mornings so they always just leave me to sleep. Once I’d been woken up I just couldn’t get back to sleep so I’m writing this after having about 3 hours of sleep.
I was half asleep and had gotten up to brush my teeth when I noticed there was blood pouring down my arm and all over the floor. The cannula must have gotten caught on something and, as it was only half in to begin with, had come out and that was where the blood was coming from. My room looked like a murder scene- there was blood on the bed, the floor, the sink and my dressing gown! So much blood from such a tiny vein.
The doctors came and saw me on the ward round and the plan is to let my bowels settle themselves down, hopefully without the need for an NG tube. The vomiting seems to have stopped but I can feel it all sloshing around in my belly and I feel nauseous all the time despite the anti sickness meds. I’ve not had anything to drink and not attempted any oral meds so I’m hoping that when I eventually do it won’t start it off again. I’m praying that it’s going to be a short stay- I cannot be in here for Christmas.
Comments
Post a Comment