annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Told you I was poorly Pneumonia, just a bit, not enough to keep me in hospital: “We go by the person, not the numbers,” and although I think I feel pretty fucking rough - I couldn’t keep up with him on the walk to X-ray - apparently I'm in good nick for a fat old woman of 64. And looking at the other old women round and about in the hospital, I had to agree, which was nice. I phoned 111 at about four thirty (emergency free nhs helpline) as I had a weird collection of symptoms and as soon as I answered yes to the question about chest pains, the woman went into hyperdrive, wanting me to take fistfuls of aspirin at once and reassuring me that she’d stay with me on the line till the ambulance arrived and it wouldn’t be long. It wasn’t and they put me in the back and attached me to a heart thing and didn’t like what it said so off we went to a and e (ER). I did have to wait a while there but then they did a gazillion tests which all came back normal apart from infection markers - really high - and the thing they could see on my right lung where I'd felt the pain. So after discussion with several medics, who kept looking at me, they sent me home with a big box of massive antibiotics, a date for another X-ray in four weeks and instructions for what to look out for in case I don’t get better. And home by 9. It was panic earlier that got my heart racing. They were all rushed off their feet and finding equipment was a nightmare - took the nurse ages to find an ecg machine and then others kept peeping through the curtains asking to have it next. But if I didn’t already know what was happening to our precious nhs, nothing that happened today would have given it away. Everyone was friendly, kindly, bloody lovely. In and out in about four hours, free meds (for the over 60s), free everything. We can’t let it all be sold off and we have to get it set up in the US, ok, comrades? Now it’s late enough to take my first pill, so you take care, y’all, back soon. I am grateful for the nhs, really fucking grateful 11:34 p.m. - 12.04.19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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