In the past two weeks of lockdown, I have had two completely different experiences of dealing with the NHS, through the 111 Helpline and having to dial 999.
In the early hours of the morning of Wednesday 29 April, I experienced a gallstone episode and, again, the symptoms were different. I wasn’t sick, it was just two hours of retching, the indigestion type pain, the sweating and the horrific back pain along with feeling light headed. During the course of Wednesday 29 April and Thursday 30 April, although the indigestion type pain had passed, the back pain became unbearable. I dialled the NHS helpline first who, after being on hold for approximately 30 minutes, cut me off. The pain worsened so I dialled 999. At this point, I had been in pain for over 24 hours (much longer than the 1 hour recommended to me by my GP before dialling 999). I went through my symptoms with the call handler and was told that, basically, no paramedic would come out to me for, and I quote “back ache”! Back ache? Back ache? This is not me having done too much gardening in one afternoon and pulled a muscle. This is not me having gone a bit overboard cleaning the kitchen floor and vacuuming the stairs. This is not back ache! I was told to phone the NHS 111 Helpline and when I advised the call handler that I had and had been cut off, she told me to call them again. I did. I eventually got through. After nearly three hours of going backwards and forwards, the advice from a GP was to use a hot water bottle! Really? I’d taken approximately in the region of 8-12 tramadol at that point and you want me to use a hot water bottle!
Anyway, at approximately 10:20pm that evening, I received a further call from the NHS Helpline advising me that they had arranged an appointment with a doctor at the Urgent Care Centre at my local hospital (not A&E) for 11pm that night and I just had to get there. Okay, so how was I going to get there? I can barely move so driving isn’t an option. Plus the fact that if I drove up there and was, for some reason, admitted, who is going to then drive my car home or keep pumping the ticket machine full of cash in the car park? Public transport is out of the window because, under normal circumstances, it takes 45 minutes on my local bus from my house to the hospital, let alone during lockdown on a reduced service and at 10.30pm! Okay, cab it is then. I phoned four different cab companies in my local area and none of them had anything available for at least an hour. Well, that’s just great. So, I had to phone 111 back and cancel the appointment. I asked if there was anything available for later that night, but there wasn’t anything. I can’t phone anybody at 10:20pm and ask them to drive me up there because, firstly, there are the social distancing rules and secondly, and most importantly, the ones I could have potentially asked would all have had a drink by 10:20pm during lockdown so they’re not touching their car keys!
So, I took yet more tramadol, curled up on the sofa to try to get comfortable, cried a lot and eventually fell asleep. Given the amount of tramadol that I’d taken, it was more likely that I passed out to be fair. I was still in pain on the Friday morning when I finally came to after the previous night’s tramadol. It wasn’t as bad as it had been and given my experience the previous night, I decided that I wasn’t even going to bother that day trying to either get hold of my GP or ring the 111 Helpline again. I just had to suck it up and get on with it. It took a total of four days for the pain to completely pass and I was pretty much immobile that entire time. It was awful. I felt so completely useless and there was a lot of crying but I just felt that because I couldn’t get hold of anybody medical that would give me some decent advice, what was the point of trying?
In the two weeks following that, I had a couple of “mini episodes”. 30-45 minutes of feeling like utter hell, lots of vomiting and then then pain passed. I can deal with them because, as soon as I start being sick, the pain starts to subside. No food ever comes up, it’s always bile. Theoretically, I should be stick thin given the amount I’ve thrown up over the past few weeks but, I swear to God, that if I put on any more weight during lockdown, Google Maps is going to be convinced I’m a roundabout.
Anyway, on Tuesday afternoon of last week, I had a further “mini episode”. 30 minutes start to finish. Hit by excruciating indigestion type pain straight away and back pain, I went straight to the bathroom. I was sweating and felt light headed but literally as soon as I got to the bathroom, I started being sick. I was sick continuously for about 20 minutes. Once that had stopped and I had rinsed my mouth out and brushed my teeth, the pain immediately started to subside. I got myself a glass of water, sat down for 10 minutes to recover and then was straight onto a Zoom call with the family for my youngest nephew’s birthday as if nothing had happened. I was tired but all good to speak with the family. No problem.
I wasn’t so lucky on Wednesday morning. This where my second experience of the NHS was completely different. At about 9am on Wednesday, I started getting the indigestion type pain and it was getting worse. The back pain started to come into play as well so I headed off to the bathroom to get as comfortable as possible and get ready to be sick. For the next hour, I was continuously sick. It was purely bile, I hadn’t eaten on Wednesday morning or, indeed, on Tuesday evening after the “mini episode” so where all this was coming from, your guess is as good as mine. By about 10.30am, I’d had enough. I was still in a ridiculous amount of pain and now I couldn’t catch my breath. I phoned Jill. I put her on speaker phone and tried to tell her what was going on. Immediately, Jill knew this was a bad one and said she would phone for an ambulance. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to answer all of the questions that they ask you if I phoned so I was very grateful that Jill could do it for me.
Jill phoned back to say she had called for an ambulance and the paramedics arrived incredibly swiftly. They were absolutely lovely. Jill showed up to the house just after they arrived also. I’m afraid to say that social distancing went right out the window that morning! It took quite a while to get my breathing under control, but eventually it settled. We went through the usual tests of my blood pressure, blood sugar, heart rate, ECG and oxygen levels. All was normal as I knew it would be because it always is, even during a major episode.
The paramedics stayed with me for over two hours. Obviously, we’re all trying to avoid me having to be admitted to the hospital because of COVID-19. We eventually got some paracetamol into me and the indigestion type pain started to subside but didn’t go completely and the back pain was still there. Basically, with all of the vomiting, it had induced a panic attack. The panic attacks that I have had before don’t show themselves with hyperventilating. Usually, I am just stuck in one spot, cannot move and feel as if I’m have an out of body experience so to have a panic attack with these symptoms was a whole new experience for me and a damned scary one it was too.
The paramedics reassured me that the residual pain that I was feeling once my breathing had returned to normal was because of all the straining as a result of the vomiting. They said that I would feel like this for a while and should aim to get more paracetamol down me in another 4 hours.
The paramedic crew themselves were funny, kind, reassuring and bloody good at their jobs. They had a wicked sense of humour and, clearly, this particular crew are very good chums, know each other incredibly well and get on like a house on fire. Definitely a “work husband and wife” team. The things that these crews must see and experience and they still had a most fabulous sense of humour – albeit quite a dark and sarcastic sense of humour, which mine definitely can be too!
They gave me my copies of the paperwork which is something else that I have now got for my discussion with the Surgical Team this week. They didn’t want to leave me and kept reiterating that if the pain didn’t go away, I was to call 999 again and they would come back. I told them about my previous experience and they were neither amused nor surprised! Their staff details were on the bottom of the paperwork and so, on Thursday morning, I sent an email to the London Ambulance Service telling them of my gratitude and commendation to the LAS about this particular crew because they were, quite frankly, amazing. I genuinely do not know how I would have coped on Wednesday without their support and most certainly without Jill’s support.
So, this Wednesday is my telephone consultation with the Surgical Team. Jill and I asked the paramedics questions about procedures and they said that things were starting to move again in terms of non-urgent operations/procedures so there is a little flicker of light right now that I may start to make some progress in terms of finding out when this will be dealt with. In the meantime, I carry on as “normal”. I hope that each episode will be a “mini episode” that I can deal with (although shouldn’t have to be dealing with) and if I do have another major episode, there is no doubt in my mind that this crew have restored my faith in 999 and the NHS in relation to non-COVID-19 matters.
Living The BPD Life 