I'm Where All The NHS Funding Goes

When I was 19 I was admitted to hospital.

I’ve started this off as if I’m telling a story, haven’t I?

Once upon a time, a maiden fair… ugh.

In all seriousness though, when I was 19 I became pretty sick. There’s really no other way to say it.

At that point in time I had no clue what would happen, what was happening, and what would continue to happen. I didn't realise the impact it would have on my life, my future and my family, not that it’s had a huge impact per se, but it hasn’t had an insignificant one either.

As far as I can remember (all the dates sort of blur together), I had something akin to flu in February/ March of 2012, and lost about a stone in weight. I wasn't eating very much, and what I did eat and drink came back up minutes, seconds, later.

I then got better, supposedly, but a few weeks later started vomiting again, and lost about two stone more. At this point I was basically on death's door. Not eating properly for several weeks will do this to you.

I'd been to my GP, and had a blood test and it showed that my blood counts were incredibly low. I can't remember exact figures, but it may as well have been 0.

The problem here is that this sort of result from a blood test is way outside of your local GPs' comfort zone, and so their grand advise was "stay at home, because you're prone to infection".

A week passed by and I still wasn't getting any better, (no shit), and my Dad dragged my sorry arse down to the GP and demanded I see a doctor.

Well, I don't know about your experience with GP surgery receptionists, but they really don't give a flying fuck about the patients. They look at you with utter contempt, as if you have personally ruined their lives, and they want to be anywhere else. Do surgeries simply advertise their receptionist vacancies by saying “no need for compassion and empathy”?

Anyway, they said that there weren't any appointments available, and no one could see me that day. Meanwhile I'm sitting down, green/ yellow in the corner, the most obviously sick person in the room and they don't care! NHS in a nutshell, eh?

Regardless of what the receptionists said, Dad didn’t back down, but argued and argued and eventually they let me see my GP.

As soon as the doctor saw me, he started making arrangements. He phoned Maidstone, because Pembury was full, and within two hours my Dad had driven me to the hospital. I hung around in A&E for a while, periodically vomiting and refusing to eat, and finally, late that evening was placed into a ward.

Lord North Ward. Where do I begin?

Nursing staff? Brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. Trained up impeccably. And so respectful. Apart from one, actually, who made it her mission to make me feel even worse, by blaming me for the fact that I wasn't eating. Apparently, it was my choice. That's how she made me feel anyway. What sort of nurse makes you feel bad for being ill?

I was 19, and dying!

The first thing they did was put me on fluids, which, if you're unfamiliar, is a huge bottle of liquid designed to rehydrate you when you're not eating and drinking. I seem to remember this being my least favourite treatment, because you're attached to an IV stand for 12 hours at a time. I remember being attached to that stand for days at a time actually, which makes it difficult to move, go to the toilet, shower, etc, not that I was really doing any of these things. Also, as soon as you unplug the stand it starts beeping at you until it's plugged back in.

I will take this opportunity to thank my mum, and sister, for helping me to wash when they visited. I've always been a private person, and couldn't bear to ask the nurses to help me clean. I wanted some dignity, I suppose, but I was probably just being young and stubborn. So, thank you both for that.

I hated every second of that IV stand. That thing was attached to my arm almost permanently, pumping me full of broad spectrum antibiotics, paracetamol, fluids, blood transfusions. You name it, it was probably in me.

I also hated the beds. Detested the beds, even. I mean, I know it's for ease of cleaning, but who on earth wants to sleep on a plastic-coated mattress, covered by a thin sheet? If you have a fever, which I did, constantly, or even if you don't, there is no way for your body to breathe in these beds. The plastic causes sweating, and you wake up in the night with sweat pooled under your back, drenched. It’s even worse when they give you IV paracetamol to bring your temperature down. I lost count of how many times the nurses changed my sheets each night/ early morning because I couldn't sleep on them again.

Now, let's talk about the food. If you can call it food, because most of it was disgusting. I guess they attempt to feed the patients on a penny a day, because I found almost everything I ate at both hospitals absolutely revolting. 

Maybe I'm just fussy, having grown up with parents who cooked from scratch, and eating out at lovely restaurants. My aunt told me this story about how as a child I asked if she had any mayonnaise; she tells me she offered me salad cream instead, but was gobsmacked that I wanted such a "high end" item!

I always thought mayonnaise was just there, a staple item needed in anyone's culinary collection, but I guess it didn't use to be. 

Both hospitals offered the typical jacket potatoes with baked beans, tuna or cheese, as well as salads and sandwiches. These were definitely the safer options of anything on their so called menus, but even so, it was a risky game. 

They also had cauliflower cheese, minced beef, and others listed, although I never really ordered anything other than the "safe" options previously mentioned. Once, I ordered the cauliflower cheese, feeling a little adventurous that day, and upon taking a bite was met with an explosion of uncooked flour in my mouth, whilst elephant leg (we'll get to her) across the room raved about how delicious the food was. She'd ordered the same as I had, and I was left wondering what on earth she ate when she was at home? Whatever it was, it must have been awful...

Needless to say, from that moment on I only ever ordered jacket potatoes, sandwiches and the occasional salad at Maidstone. 

The Hammersmith menu was fairly similar to that of Maidstone's, however with options that included halal meat, to cater to the more diverse range of cultures in London. 

I decided to order a chicken curry once and my god, it was almost as bad as the cauliflower cheese, so much so that I could only take a couple of bites of the rice before I gave up. It honestly looked like cat sick in the middle of a plate. It was definitely not appetising, especially for someone who had only just started wanting to eat again.

So, after that I didn't have any expectations about hospital food. Other than that it would be horrid.

I ordered the jacket potatoes and sandwiches every single day. It's a wonder I didn't succumb to potato poisoning. 

I've often thought that there must be dozens of inpatients who have "not eating" scribbled into their files. But why would we? Why would we want to eat this unappetising, undercooked slop? Food boosts morale, does it not? Food helps people get better, so how can food help us if it's bad?
Which leads me onto the sleeping situation. Sleep helps people get better too, but in hospital you are not allowed to sleep. 

We've already covered the plastic mattresses and the lack of sleep that comes from that, but what about the four hourly observations the nurses have to do? 10pm, 2am, 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and so on and so on. 

As soon as you get back to sleep, the nurses are back, slapping a blood pressure cuff on your arm, a pulse monitor on your finger and checking your temperature. 

And if there are any problems, they do it again. Early on, before I was started on the steroids, my temperature was high all the time, which meant I was having paracetamol pretty much every four hours to bring it back down. 

If I had a temperature at 2am they'd attach me to a paracetamol drip and just like that, I'd be conjoined with the IV stand again. 

The 6am observations were always my least favourite. Actually, it was that combined with everything else. They'd do the observations, I'd get to sleep again about an hour later and be woken by the nurses who were starting that day, and then given breakfast, and then given pills and then the doctors would come round. Well, actually, the doctors could show up anytime between 9 and 5; most of your time in hospital is made up of waiting...

So basically, after 6am I always lost any hope of getting some actual sleep.

The Doctors. My main consultant was a fairly short man, with a bow tie. My mum describes him as Emperor Palpatine, but I don't see the resemblance. Also, at the time, I didn't like him. At the time, I didn't like anyone. He had a habit of ignoring his patients and talking about them as if they weren’t there.

One time really sticks with me. Bow tie doctor looked at me, looked at the others and said "toxo", they all nodded, repeated it, and then they all walked away. I was left there wondering if I'd been diagnosed. I guess because I was 19 they didn't think I'd understand. I don't know. They weren't very communicative with me.

Another time, I remember my Dad talking to a redheaded doctor about House. House the programme. Dad was joking about how he thought I was going to have a seizure since I'd been admitted to hospital, as that always happened in House. Or else, bleed from my eyeballs.

It didn't occur to me back then, it certainly wasn't a conscious decision, but I'd all but given up. I was just going through the motions. I wasn't eating, I wasn't drinking, I wasn't cleaning myself, rarely brushing my teeth or hair. I didn't have the energy, or the will, to do so. I most definitely looked the way I felt.

I was just taking the pills, usually vomiting them up again, and then lying back down to sleep.

I still had plenty of fat stores on my body. Whilst I'd lost over three stone, I was overweight to begin with, and had always had an appetite to match that of an elephant. As it was, I was yellow in pallor and gaunt. Combine that with the drastic weight loss and I probably looked like Lord Voldemort.

I didn't care.

Part of me, a big part, wanted to be left alone. You know that voice in the back of your mind that tells you to live, that you have family and friends waiting for you to get better? I don't remember having that. I don't know if I ever told myself to get better for the other people in my life, let alone for myself.

Afterward, when I was better, my sister told me she asked my Mum if I was going to die, and my Mum said she didn't know. My Mum revealed to me that she thought I was though. My aunt also told me she had had a good cry because she thought I was going to die.

My dad, ever the realist, told me he thought I was going to live, but only because I was getting the help I needed. If I'd stayed home, I surely wouldn't have.

It genuinely didn’t occur to me that I might not have made it, not even once.

My Mum insists that my appetite has always been an indicator of my health. She realised just how sick I was when I barely ate a delicious roast she made at Easter, just before I was admitted to Maidstone Hospital. I think that worried her more than anything, because the people who know me, know I love my food. I’ve always been one of those people who eats when I’m sick, even if I’m vomiting. I just always get hungry.

Anyway, to Maidstone Hospital Haematology and Oncology department, I was a medical mystery, or as I like to say now, a "medical marvel!"

My symptoms presented themselves as follows.

-          Sickness and diarrhoea.

-          Swollen spleen.

-          Lump in armpit lymph-node.  

-          Lack of appetite.

-          Blood tests that showed severely low blood counts.

That's the basic gist of it all anyway.

Firstly, my blood levels were checked again. Daily. I cannot remember the exact levels, but the various components of my blood were dangerously low. We already knew this of course, as my GP had done a very basic blood test to check my red blood cells and white blood cells. Maidstone Hospital went one step further and checked all aspects of my blood, including RBCs and WBCs, but also platelets, neutrophils, plasma, basophils, etc. There are so many aspects to blood, way more than you learn about in science at school, the basics. It didn’t matter anyway, because the doctors were only focused on the main parts like the red blood cells, which contain haemoglobin, WBCs and neutrophils.

Neutrophils should be the most abundant type of white blood cells, but mine were so low that I was immediately branded as NEUTROPENIC and PANCYTOPENIC. This meant I was “prone to infection”. Yadda, yadda, I’d heard it all before. Because of this it was arranged for me to be moved to a private room, so that I’d come across fewer people and their germs. This was definitely a high point in my stay, because it meant I could get some much needed privacy.

Don’t get me wrong, the four other women in my ward weren’t awful. They were just normal. Well, one had a commode, which absolutely reeked, and one unfortunately passed away in the middle of the night a few days after I arrived. She was a much older lady, and her entire family was called to the ward in the early hours because her outlook looked bleak. She’d been on ventilators, and had probably been there for a long time.

One of them really irritated me though, just because she wouldn’t stop talking, not even once. She would narrate everything she was doing, all the time, whether it was lunchtime, or four in the morning. She’d drag herself out of bed with her IV stand and walk slowly to the bathroom, complaining the whole time about her “elephant” leg. She told me she had cancer in her leg and that’s why it was so large, but I never asked her any details. She meant well, that was for sure, but she was nosy as heck. More than once I would hear her talking to her visitors about me, how I was only 19, and didn’t know what was wrong. As a private person this really annoyed me, so I couldn’t wait to get into that side room.

The side room had a bed, an IV stand, a fridge, a TV and its’ own bathroom. All the essentials for a lengthy hospital stay. I guess, for me, the one good thing about being so “prone to infection” is that I got to have my own space.

Within the first few days of admittance I was tested for countless diseases. HIV, leukaemia, toxoplasmosis. They even checked to see if I was pregnant. Endless disease names were banded around. This was usually done just after I'd been poked and prodded. Apparently having a large spleen is a novelty, and almost every single doctor wanted to have a feel. I'd be lying on the bed having just been felt up, with five or six doctors standing around me, talking over my head rather than to me.

Next came more poking and prodding. This started out as blood tests. My veins are rubbish. They're small, and they move/ disappear. A nurse/ phlebotomist would find a vein, turn away to grab a needle, turn back, and the vein would have shrunk away.

They did blood tests every single day and they would stab me with a needle more than once trying to get blood. This left me with bruises and needle marks in the crooks of my elbows, on the backs of my hands and in my wrists.

Then there was my cannula.

A cannula, is a plastic tube attached to some ports and inserted into a vein. It's so medication can be administered easily and quickly. This really should be changed every three to four days, so the vein doesn't get overworked, or infected, which just added to the fact that I was battered and bruised.

One doctor, the previously mentioned redhead, spent about half an hour smacking my arm and turning it blue with a tourniquet in an attempt to put a cannula in. To his credit, he did it on the first go. Kudos to him.

After the countless blood tests had revealed nothing other than my low blood counts, they decided to start on the biopsies.

The first being the swollen lymph-node in my right underarm. I was wheeled down to a small room, where my arm was lifted over my head and a contraption with a needle attached was plunged into my armpit. I had a wicked bruise there for a while. It turned out to be a waste of time to be honest, because nothing came back from it. They theorised that it was an ingrown hair, so, I'd probably caused it myself whilst shaving.

Then the spleen biopsy. Again, wheeled into a room, needle plunger contraption stabbed into me just below the left side of my ribs. Voila. Turns out it wasn't filtering my blood properly.

That night was horrendous. My blood pressure dropped overnight, and they immediately thought I was bleeding internally because of the spleen biopsy. In an emergency, I was wheeled down to the CT scanner, and had the scan. Next thing I knew they were catheterising me, to monitor my urine levels. Mum rushed down in the middle of the night to be with me because I was in such a state.
A catheter is an unusual thing. They insert it up your urethra, and into your bladder, where they inflate a small balloon so it can't fall out. Every time you stand up, the bag is yanked down, so you get this feeling of your organs being pulled down into your vagina. It's uncomfortable, and I felt, at the time, unnecessary. It probably wasn't, but I'm stubborn. I was convinced they just wanted to make my life more of a misery than it already was.

The bone marrow sample was pretty bad. In more ways than one; because it was painful, and because of what it showed.

They inject a lot of local anaesthetic into the back of your hip bone, and then insert a needle in to drain some blood out of the bone and then break some bone away. It's again, uncomfortable, but even with all the local anaesthetic it still bloody well hurts.

The bone marrow sample revealed what was actually happening to me. I wish they'd done it sooner.
My immune system was attacking itself. Or more specifically, my white blood cells were growing to a certain point, not maturing, and then engulfing each other. Autoimmune.

What they think happened, although there's no solid evidence for this, is that I got some sort of infection, and my immune system went into overdrive. 

The next illness to be discussed was HLH, otherwise known as Haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis.

The doctors actually googled my symptoms and came up with HLH. From google!

I don't understand the finer points of HLH. Just that it's terrifying, there isn't really a cure and that next to no one has ever had it. My illness was similar to this in many ways, but didn't have all the aspects, so it was more of a comparison than an actual diagnosis, thank god. Chemotherapy would have been part of the treatment. And a small part at that.

It was at this point, three weeks after I'd been admitted, that they contacted Hammersmith Hospital. Hammersmith arranged a bed for me, and I was sent up by ambulance. Basically, by this point, Maidstone and its Haematologists were just barely treading water in helping me, and they palmed me off on someone else.

I'm so grateful that they did.

When the paramedics came to pick me up and drive me up to London, it was 8.30pm. I know this because I was exactly halfway through watching a documentary about Titanaboa, a giant prehistoric snake that could reach 48 feet long! I didn’t get to watch the rest of this documentary until about two years later.

Hammersmith's Haematology department is excellent. They definitely specialise in it. They'd heard of HLH, and they knew it wasn't that.

The only issue was that they didn't trust anything Maidstone had done.

Next ensued a repeat of almost every single test. Even the basics, like urine samples and finding out my blood type, right to the more important things, like bone marrow biopsies. I did complain a little about that though, so they didn't snap off more of my bone, but they did drain some of the blood out.

Again, all the results that came back were the same as Maidstone's results.

And the government can't understand why the NHS haemorrhages money. The tests didn't need to be repeated. Twice they did the tests, twice the amount of money was wasted to do it.

They also did a lot of scans. MRI, CT, ultrasounds of my spleen and heart. When the information that came back just showed my spleen was still too large, around 22cm across instead of 11cm (according to google), they arranged for me to have a Petscan. Hammersmith Hospital didn’t have its’ own pet scanner, so they organised an ambulance to transport me with a few other patients to St Mary’s, I believe, or maybe it was Charing Cross…

Now, this is where the NHS really fucked up. Royally.

At this point I was eating again. I can’t remember if I had started the steroids or not, but I was definitely eating, because I ate a lot the night before my Petscan and had breakfast on the day. I even asked a nurse if I was allowed to eat before. She said yes. Remember that.

The morning of, my Mum journeyed up nice and early so she could be my chaperone. The hospitals like a nurse to go with a patient, but as there would be other patients and other nurses joining us they made an exception.

We arrived at the other hospital, and made our way to the waiting room. There were a few other people there who had their appointments before me, and two of them were turned away. One of them wasn’t allowed their scan because they hadn’t been told to stop taking their medication that day, and another, like me, hadn’t been told they couldn’t eat.

When it was my turn, I was taken down the hall and briefed. They asked if I’d eaten, and I said yes. I saw this guy’s face fall, and I immediately told him that a nurse had told me I was allowed to eat before this scan. He shook his head and told me that she was wrong. He told me that my ward would have received a fax from them with all the details on it, and that he would give me a copy of it now, so that I could follow it for next time. He told me that with the ambulance that had brought me and the scan it would have cost the NHS around £1000 per person, and I was going to have to have it again. It’s bad when NHS staff don’t trust other NHS staff. It’s even worse when they waste a grand per person on any scan that didn’t happen, just because of someone not reading a damn letter.

So, we were then ferried back to Hammersmith, and my Petscan was arranged for another time. This time I made sure to keep the letter, and I followed it perfectly.

Endoscopy or colonoscopy? Unfortunately, I was subjected to both. And the one I would do again? Colonoscopy. Anytime, anywhere, without a doubt. I’m telling you, I would much rather a tube shoved up my arse, than a tube shoved down my throat.

Before a colonoscopy they give you laxatives to clear you out. You aren’t allowed to eat for a ridiculous amount of time, something like a day and a half, or at least that’s how long I couldn’t eat for. I wish they’d done this to me when I wasn’t hungry, but they didn’t. When you’re an inpatient they take you down to the procedure area and you wait. You wait until there’s an available spot between other outpatients and inpatients, and the whole time your stomach is grumbling until you can’t take it anymore. But, finally, they bring you in and get started. They give you a mild sedative through your cannula, just to relax you, and then they lie you on a cot, and get shoving! Nothing of significance came back.

The endoscopy was the worst thing I’ve ever had to endure in my life. Worse than the central line (which we’ll get to), worse than the bone marrow, and the colonoscopy, and the spleen and armpit biopsies, and if I can help it I NEVER want to have another one, ever again! It’s just unbearable. Again, they clear your system, wheel you down to the procedure room, (which is the same place as the colonoscopy; let’s hope they don’t mix up the tubes, huh?) but this time they spray the back of your throat with a local anaesthetic. The nurse said, “It’s banana flavoured” and sprayed it into my mouth without warning. I hate banana. Then they put you on your side, and proceed to push the tube down your throat. You have two or three nurses pinning you down, because the urge to thrash and get away is so strong. When the tube reaches your stomach, they pump air in so it expands and they can get some clear visuals, and because of this you’re bloated, gagging, burping, frothing at the mouth, trying to get away, and the whole time there’s something stuck in your throat. Nothing of significance came up. Never again.

Early on in my Hammersmith stay it was suggested that my spleen be removed. It was still overly large, and as nothing had come of the biopsies, they talked about taking it out and having a good old poke at it. At the time I thought, ok, why not? If it'll help, if I'll get better, then sure. Dad wasn't happy about that. He understood the implications and what it would be like to live without a spleen. So grateful they never removed it.

And because even more blood was being taken from my ever dwindling internal supply, my veins were getting even more bruised and abused. It was at Hammersmith they suggested inserting a Central Line.

A Central Line is essentially a giant cannula inserted into the artery into your neck. It's so they can take blood and give IV medications without poking and prodding. It certainly gave my veins a break.

I was pushed down in my bed by the porters to the procedure room, had a sheet plastic window draped over my face, and local anaesthetic injected into my neck.

It hurt. When they first put the central line in, my entire right arm went numb. They immediately whipped it back out and gave me more local anaesthetic. Next time they put the central line in, it didn't hurt, but I could feel it.

The feeling is similar to that of having a tooth out. The injections hurt, but then the procedure doesn't. You can feel everything, as you're pulled around, but there's no pain.

They told me that grown men had cried during this procedure. At the time, this fact amazed me. Me, a 19 year old girl, tougher than a full grown man? Incredible. Now, I look back and think that everyone is different, and the fact that they told me that is actually kind of sexist, really.

They started me on steroids after this, which suppressed my immune system enough so that my blood cells could mature and would stop working in hyperdrive and attacking each other. It worked well, and quickly.

The side effects weren't my friends though. My hair fell out. Not all of it, but enough to thin it out considerably, enough that I'd wake up every morning with my pillow covered in my hair, and hairs all over my torso all the time. I was irritable, and I was hungry again. So hungry.

I was eating for a family of four people. Minimum. And that's not even really an exaggeration. The steroids meant I never felt full. And I mean never. I could eat and eat and eat, and never wanted to stop.

My body retained a lot of water during that time, and I had this wonderful shiny moon face, perfectly round. It was something I didn't really care about back then, because I was feeling better and felt like myself again, but I look back at the pictures now, and I get this horrible feeling of second-hand embarrassment. I often wonder if I'd just controlled my eating habits and limited myself, would I have retained less water? Would I have had less of a steroid face? I guess I'll never know.

It was shortly after I'd started the steroids and my health was improving, and my blood counts started to increase that my doctor allowed me one day of freedom.

My dad drove all the way up from Kent with my brother and sister with the intent of taking me to Windsor for the day. I don't know why Windsor, that's just what he suggested...

Anyway, so he arrived around 9am, and then hung around for two hours before the nurse finally removed the central line from my neck, followed by another 45 minutes to make sure my neck wound clotted. And then they told us that Windsor was too far away. 

I think by this point my Dad was getting royally hacked off. He was having to pay two to three hours of hospital parking, which was about £6, not to mention how much he’d spent on petrol to get there, and his plans for Windsor were scuppered.

Thus, the idea for going to Kew Gardens was born.

The only irritating part was that my bra was too big. Massive in fact. At least twice the size it needed to be, but it was only one I had and so I put it on and was basically swimming in it, I'd lost so much weight.

We spent the day at Kew, looking at the plants and the fish, and I didn't feel like a patient anymore. Robbie and Ruth had masses of energy and climbed the walls, quite literally, whilst we fed the ducks. Then on the way back we stopped at Café Rouge for dinner. I had the minute steak, garlic butter, and a coke. It was the best meal I'd ever had.

Ok, well it wasn't the best meal I'd ever had, my Dad is an incredible cook, and I'm a massive foodie, so I'd eaten a lot during my life, but after weeks and weeks of hospital food, it was delicious.
I'd eaten dozens of jacket potatoes in prison, er hospital, and there's only so much potato a person can endure.

Once I was finally released I didn't eat jacket potatoes for months!

It was around five days after my day out at Kew Gardens that my doctor let me go home.

And I was ecstatic!

It was June time and boiling hot. My friends Hannah and Philly were visiting and had brought cheese and crackers and choco liebniz. I distinctly remember being told when I could go home because my Doctor walked in when I was holding one. A choco liebniz I mean.

I held the biscuit the whole time my Doctor was talking, the chocolate melting onto my fingers as she said I could go home the next day!

I was back a few days later for an outpatient appointment, just to check that everything was still ok, and then returned regularly for several months after as they slowly weaned me off the steroids. My moon face went away, my hair stopped falling out, and I was at my usual level of irritable again, as opposed to steroid level.

Five weeks and five days. That's how long I was in hospital. Three weeks in Maidstone I believe, two weeks and five days in Hammersmith.

As of May 2015, it’s estimated that it would cost around £400 per day for someone to stay in an NHS hospital, but this is a loose figure as it depends on the treatment needed. I needed a lot of treatment, not to mention all the tests that were repeated for one reason or another, so I definitely cost them a lot more. I’m sure I could have cost a lot less if hospitals just trusted each other’s results, and nursing staff read the faxes they received.

Essentially all I’m asking is that people in the NHS communicate with each other, as a lot of these bullshit issues could have been prevented.

Don’t get me wrong, I will defend the NHS to my grave. I think it’s fantastic that anyone, rich or poor, immigrant or native, anyone at all, can get the help they need. We pay for it out of our taxes, so we don’t have to worry. I would hate to live in America and pay for treatment over there. It’s abhorrent to me that someone can’t walk into a hospital and get help because they don’t have enough money or insurance. That’s disgusting. Having said that, the NHS could be drastically improved, that goes without saying. A lot of issues could be resolved by simply communicating, but also by more training.

The fact that our government feels the need to minimise funding on health, suggests to me that they don’t actually care about the people in their country though, so what can we do? Fuck all, except watch.

A lot more happened during that time than I can pinpoint and include right now, but I’m sure it will be covered at some point. If anyone is interested in reading another instalment of my medical history., then please come back. It’s probably not even all that interesting, but it might intrigue someone.

Anyway, thanks for reading,
Rachel.