A Monday in A&E

Having gone to bed with a minor headache and feeling slightly hot I awoke this morning with a raging headache and a temperature of 39°.

And generally feeling pretty awful.

I phoned the UCLH helpline who advised me to go to my local A&E.

I phoned mum to ask if she could look after Teddy ( the dog) and my brother in law kindly offered to take me to Harlow A&E.

On arrival at A&E we were met by Barbara who had come from work, she helped me check in.

After about 30 minutes Barbara went to see when I might be seen and I was escalated to the Red List.

Within 10 minutes I was being seen.

My observations were done and some notes taken.

I was then moved into a room were thankfully there was a bed I could lie on as I was feeling pretty rough by now.

I was then hooked up to an IV and given 2 types of antibiotics and some IV Paracetamol.

I also had a chest xray and a ECG.

I started to feel a bit better, not sure what it was, maybe the paracetamol?

Once the IV meds had finished I was then given 1000ml of saline solution to boost my fluids.

I was then seen by a Doctor who did a few more checks and then he went off to check my xray.

Before long he was back and said everything looked fine apart from one ‘infection’ marker which a little high.

He had also spoken to the onclogy team who said this sounded like it was a reaction to the Trial Drugs I have taken as part of Neptunes.

He also asked me about my broken ribs which he had seen on the xray, but that was from a fall about 20 years ago!

We then had a chat about how I was feeling, I was feeling much better by this time. So we agreed I would go home once the saline completed.

So after about 5 hours in A&E we headed home, I felt better but still felt a bit groggy and done in.

I have to say that all the staff I met today were very good, kind and friendly. Nothing but praise for them all.