Held

Well, that has been a bit of a week!

Last weekend, I probably did a bit much. It’s hard to tell, to be honest. In August I was as fit as a fiddle, now there are a few strings broken. I know I can’t do as much as I used to in August. In fact, I really can’t do very much at all, but how much of not doing very much at all is doing too much altogether?

I haven’t a clue what the answer to that question is, because I don’t think I understand what the question is myself! Suffice to say that by Sunday evening I was in pain. By 3 o’clock on Monday morning, I was in agony and the emergency meds were not doing any good at all. We called NHS but more painkillers was their only solution.

At 9:00 am I phoned my specialist nurse at Strathcarron Hospice and she was at the house checking me over within minutes. Then the GP was called and it was agreed that I had to go to hospital by ambulance as the pain of the car journey would be too much. The ambulance was called at 10, but because of my pain and potential pain levels, it had to be an ambulance with a paramedic on board.

That put a delay into everything that followed. The ambulance arrived at 7:30 on Monday night, over 9 hours later. The crew were great, getting me downstairs and into the ambulance and making sure I was ok. However, when we got to the hospital, A&E was full and they didn’t want me in there in case I caught any infection, because I am such a delicate little flower (a petal just fell off as I wrote that) so they kept me in the ambulance outside for two hours. Unfortunately, the heating in the ambulance was not working.

I was taken, shivering, into a cubicle at A&E and put on a bed. They took bloods and vital statistics but then I was ignored for over an hour, not even being given a drink until I asked. I had obviously been marked as going to another unit, so it was as if I didn’t matter to them. I was not impressed.

I was taken up to the Medical Assessment Unit and admitted there to a small transit room which banged all night with beds coming in and going out. Voices everywhere but few directed to me. Lots of care, but basically none. I was given as much of my emergency meds as I needed and could get, but I was not being dealt with and by 5:00 on Tuesday morning I lost it.

I explained rather forcibly to the nurse that I have been given between 2 and 18 months to live. Why am I not being treated? Why does no one care? I have been in the hospital for hours and I have still not seen a doctor. Why? What is going on? She said she would deal with it and get me up to the top of the doctor’s list. A consultant came at 6:00 am and explained that there was a suspected fracture in the part of the pelvis where my cancer has spread. I needed an x-ray and finally got it at 7:00 am.

I have said before that the NHS has done a lot of good stuff for me, but there are parts which are just plain broken. Why wasn’t I taken straight for x-ray when I arrived at the hospital? It only took 3 minutes!

But the situation got worse and worse as Tuesday went on. I won’t go into all the details, but very little was achieved and it was only when I started kicking up a stink again that I found out how much everything was failing – common-sense stuff that only takes a bit of organisation and follow-up.

The worst of it all was that I was admitted because of pain, and on Tuesday night they really messed up. I am on prolonged-release medication which I take every 12 hours and which slowly releases over that time. At the end of 12 hours, I obviously need to take my next dose or there is none in my system. At the end of 12 hours that evening I still hadn’t had the tablets. I asked and they refused, saying I’d get them at 10pm, two hours after the due time. My pain grew. When 10 o’clock came I was screaming. Then they only gave me one of the meds – the other wasn’t on the prescription list! I wasn’t going to get it!

I went nuts. I demanded that the doctor came and then I told her that I was going nuts. She quickly grasped the fact that I was going nuts. It was a total failure of the system. None of the staff seemed to understand pain. None of them seemed to understand terminal illness – if I have only a short time to live, why should I spend it looking at a ceiling, being ignored, in pain, unable to sleep, when I can be at home with Libby?

The doctor saw it my way. She agreed that I was better at home. I went home.

Healed

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. I know that when I go to problem places, I am never alone. Before I went for my x-ray that morning, I decided to pick up my phone and read the Psalm which I have read so often during this journey I am on. The phone app I use lets me highlight verses in different colours and this particular Psalm on my phone now looks like a rainbow! The Bible says that God made the rainbow as a promise. The verse I read had not been highlighted before – it hadn’t meant much to me until that morning.

I have highlighted that verse now. The x-ray came back and there was no fracture!

And that is the whole thing about this post. The hospital held me in the building. The staff wouldn’t let me out of bed, because they thought they were doing the right thing.

But my God held me in his hands and he still does. Once I got home he started a healing process in me which took the pain down to a tolerable level. Then quite amazing things started to happen.

I have said before that I am under the care of Strathcarron Hospice. On Wednesday morning I got in touch with them and on Thursday the Consultant and my Specialist Nurse came to the house. They gave me a full examination and a pile of reassurance. They sorted out my medication changes with my GP. They chased up the situation regarding the radiotherapy and chemotherapy to the extent that I got a call from Hairmyres Hospital yesterday to say that my PICC line will be put in a week on Monday – this is a precursor to the chemo starting.

The Strathcarron staff have an amazing advantage over the majority of NHS staff in that they obviously have very specialised experience in terminal illness, but not just in terms of what it does to the body. Their greatest benefit is that they know what it does to the mind. They understand what difference the quality of a single day can make! Strathcarron Hospice runs entirely on charity, so if you are thinking of making a donation to charity, please put them near the top of your list.

So, perhaps I have stretched the title of this section a wee bit by calling it Healed. At the moment, I’m not. There are days when I am still in a lot of pain. The cancer is still there. The side effects are still there. But there are a lot of things happening which are helping right now, and there are a lot of things which will happen soon which will help even more.

Healing is on the way!