Incarceration

On the Thursday, I stayed in my bed most of the day and slept for almost all of it. Mum came home from work around 4pm and I got up. Within an hour though I could barely stand up. Mum thought I was dehydrated from not drinking enough (hard to do when you're asleep) so phoned the hospital for advice. She decided to take me through to the Acute Medical Assessment Unit where I had spent the Wednesday.

When we got there, around 5.45pm we were told we'd have to wait to see someone from A&E as the AMAU closes at 6pm......

I don't really remember much of that evening. I was one bed along from where I had been the day before, and I had bruises on my arms from where they had taken blood on the Wednesday. An A&E nurse and doctor came to talk to me, poked and prodded again. Then they decided to take more blood. Sounds easier than it was....

The nurse tried and failed, the doctor tried and failed. Mum was prodding around my arm and decided she'd have a go. She missed the first time but got blood on the second go. That was the last time for more than a week that someone took blood from me and didn't leave a bruise.

There was some discussion about transferring me to Aberdeen as technically Dr Grays weren't admitting, but as it was nearly 11pm and I was supposed to be seeing the consultant at 9am the next morning, the oncall consultant agreed I could be admitted so around 11.30pm I was moved to Ward 7, set up on a drip and that was me for two weeks.

I spent two weeks on the ward, having blood taken daily for tests. My first 3 or 4 days I was on a saline drip to rehydrate, but other than that, there was no other treatment. Only blood pressure and temperature and blood oxygen level checks every 8 hours or so.

Hospital is not a restful place. They wake you up at 6.30am, do your obs, feed you at 7am, come back about 7.45 and discuss your washing options, then after you are washed and dressed and settling back in, the cleaning staff come in and have very loud conversations across the room whilst you are trying to recover from the exertion of having had a shower. Then after they go away, the nurses come in looking for something to do (the ward was nowhere near its full capacity due to limited admissions as a result of an infection outbreak earlier in the year). 12noon is lunch time, then quiet time for an hour, then visiting, then tea time, then more visiting and then 10pm they do the drugs round and switch off lights. No peace really.

Worst of all was there was no TV. Now normally this wouldn't bother me too much, but it was Wimbledon fortnight and I couldn't see it! Eventually the doctors gave in and let me watch the semi finals and the final in the Day Room which had been taken over as their lounge as another ward was being refurbished.

Being in the hospital drove me mad. Looking back, I think I was in the right place, but the consultant who I had seen initially was on holiday the first week I was there so other doctors were looking after me. And they were doing what they did under instruction from the Scottish Liver Unit at Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh because I was a mystery.

I didn't have hepatitis a, b or c. I didn't have any cancer indicators. My ultrasound had showed my liver to be slightly enlarged but nothing else untoward.

They decided I needed to have a liver biopsy but because my blood wasn't clotting properly, it would have to be done via my jugular vein to reduce the chance of me bleeding out during the procedure. This is a pretty specialised procedure so the closest place it could be done was RIE.

And they didn't have any beds. For nearly two more weeks.....