Hospital - Admission

So my partner believed that I had had a Stroke.

I was in a state of shock. I heard the words but struggled to understand, to accept, what they meant.

My partner told me to get dressed and that we were heading for the hospital. I remember taking time to choose what to wear. Silly really but it seemed important at the time. The combination I finally settled on was: a pair of sandy coloured, heavy weight cords; a grey shirt; a brown jumper and green tweed hacking jacket. Warm and comfortable. 

I knew that going to hospital was the right, the only thing to do but a large part of me dreaded it and I certainly didn’t race toward it. Eventually I found myself in the car, and after a short discussion as to which hospital we should go (it being a choice between one in the two cities we are almost equally distant from) being driven out of the village. I don’t remember that much about the journey, except that there was very little traffic, it being around 8 o’clock on a Thursday evening.

Arriving at the hospital at around 20:30 hours we found a place in the car park and made our way to Accident and Emergency. Being located in a teaching hospital that is the only acute medical facility for a city of around a quarter of a million the Accident and Emergency Department was what you would expect: busy and a little tired. In fact much of the general waiting area was sectioned off due to renovations.

As I was not taken in by ambulance I had to book in at a cramped reception desk. Having given the receptionist my details including name, address, age, sex (yes, I know) I was given a form to fill in. This asked for such things as my doctor’s details before asking for details of my symptoms. After giving the details of what I was feeling, including that they had been apparent since Sunday, I was asked to take a seat and wait to be called.

Taking a brace of seats we settled in for the wait. It was one of the hardest waits of my life. Trying to stay calm I did what, as a writer, I like to do most: people watching. The range of visitors was as wide as you would expect. From those who were looking to use the waiting room as overnight accommodation through to students who had had a rough end to an evening out onto those who were obviously in line for multi-use rewards. Of course there those who, came in after me, were seen before me, which only added to one’s frustration. The wait was not helped by it being almost impossible to get anything to eat or, more importantly, drink.

The government has a target for Accident and Emergency Departments: 95% of those attending A&E must be seen, treated, admitted or discharged in under four hours. Which meant that I was likely to be out of there by half past midnight.

At just after a quarter to one I was called forward to be seen. Entering the treatment area I was meet by a senior nurse who took my temperature, blood pressure (224 Systolic over 140 Diastolic) and tested my ability to move and control my arms and legs. The nurse left me and my partner alone for a while in the cubicle. The next person through the door was a doctor.

As it turned out this doctor, a Registrar, was on his last shift at the hospital. He was from the Indian Sub-Continent and was returning the following week: the pressure of working in A&E being one of the reasons.

Putting me through the same range of physical tests as the nurse the doctor told me that, he too, thought that I had had a STROKE.

There was the conformation I had been dreading.

The doctor told me that I needed to have a CT (Computerised Tomography) scan and left. The nurse returned to tell me that I would have to change into one of those backless gowns. Dressed in the recommended fashion: gown; underwear; socks and shoes, I toddled off to the CT scanner. Lying on the movable bed I was whisked through the metal hoop that was the CT scanner.

Returning to Kate in the cubicle I changed back into my day clothes.

At about 01:30 in the morning another nurse came into the cubicle. She introduced herself as the on call Stroke Nurse. She was warm and friendly but very professional. Taking my blood pressure (238 over 136) again and putting me through a similar range of functional tests as the previous nurse and the doctor she told me that I would be admitted, no matter how hard I argued against it.

After being left alone again for half an hour the Stroke Nurse reappeared to escort me up to the Stroke Ward. It appeared that another Stroke Survivor had been roused out of their bed so that I could be admitted.

I was furious!

Why should anyone be woken in order to give me a bed?

Especially there was no chance that I would be getting any sleep that night!

On the ward, which was located on the fifth floor, we were met by a nurse who directed us to a side room and after accepting responsibility for me she took my pulse, my temperature and my blood pressure (250 over 140).

By 03:00 on the Friday morning I was alone in my room on an upper storey of a hospital in a medium sized city having to come to terms with the fact that I had had a STROKE.