10 Hours in A&E

Valentine’s Day and I was floored by a terrifying chest pain – I’d been uncomfortable for a few days, just thought I’d ‘pulled something’ but this was impossible to ignore. Thankfully one niece is a nurse and another a carer and we were all at the same location… they were their usual fabulous selves and took my vital signs, reassured me, booked an ambulance and explained to staff etc.

I ended up doing 10 hours in A&E – without a loved one for comfort as covid restriction mean you go alone unless you’re too frail/mentally unwell etc. It was packed and quite a few did seem to have people with them – even the not-frail. I asked the nurse later about this and she said that if they tell people to go – they just walk up to reception, check-in and say they need to get medical help too! Crazy, sad situation.

Nearly all A&E’s seating is rigid grey plastic seats with scrawny arms that dashed any hope of slightly spreading-out… horridly uncomfortable and torture if bits of you hurt. In the corners of the room there were a few softer chairs that looked like heaven – nabbed by a deserving pregnant lady and a nice man caring for his frail mum. I sat on rigid grey plastic hoping it had more give than at first glance – it didn’t. Nearest to me was a man who must have thought he’d struck gold as he was in a bed-chair – except he was in a really awkward position that basically saw him ‘planked’ at about 20 degrees. The bed-chair couldn't be adjusted as it wasn’t plugged in.

Like most others, I was politely avoiding eye-contact with people – A&E is a strange place where you feel you need what fragments of privacy you can get. A young girl, small and quiet arrived and sat opposite me and our eyes did meet as she was holding her phone up to me – wanting me to read it. I stepped forward and read: “I need a sick-bucket”. I returned a moment later with one – and not a moment too soon!

Some triage stuff was being done in the waiting room with machines brought out from time to time to monitor something and sadly – left behind to go on beeping once they’d been finished with.

Meanwhile I was doing some calming breathing behind my mask… if I was having the heart-attack that the spasming pain in my chest felt like it was… then calm seemed the goal.

Nearby though was the source of much of the human noise in the room; a young girl, her carer/boyfriend and another male friend – all seemed to be under the influence of (perhaps) drugs… they’d been in good spirits but then started demanding medical attention for the girl who they said was having fits and pain. The carer/boyfriend was getting stroppy with the medical staff… then from the corner (in the heavenly chairs), the pregnant lady shouted to the carer/boyfriend that she was fearful she was losing her baby and EVERYONE here was an emergency! The shouting, the beeping machines, the crowd, the fear… my racing heart… “Will you please just keep quiet!” – I pointlessly added to the loudness.

“Look at me love, don’t look at anyone else or listen to anything else… we’re ok you and me… we’ll look our for each other.” said the quiet man in the awkward-angled bed-chair nearest me. I wanted to cry with gratitude at the kindness and care in his voice… it made such a difference. “I’m Fred’ he added.

A drunk woman in pyjamas and dressing gown arrives, leans into the doorway to survey us all and starts shouting. She does this for some time as security try to reason with her… she says “mental f*cking health issues mate!” and she’s left to carry on. She’s got alcohol with her, continues to consume and shout, then curls up in a ball on the floor. The woman I’d dubbed ‘Queen vic’ (older lady... elegant, silent, stoic) finally cracked too with the fresh round of shouting “You’re just being childish now” she said to the pyjama lady who swigged some more alcohol and growled in reply.

The kind man trying to keep his pained and fragile mother as protected from all the chaos as possible… handled her with such dignity and respect – a hard call to maintain any sense of that here.

Another older, quiet lady arrived alone… in her Valentine’s-jumper – full of shiny pink hearts. I wondered where she’d been and what she’d been in the middle of before ending up in here with all of us, the noise and no-one to look out for her. There were no soft seats for her tiny frame.

It helped to ensure you had an ‘A&E-Buddy’ – without friends or family, a visit to the loo meant the risk of not hearing your name and waiting even longer. Fred and I were clearly buddies and went on to advocate for each other as well; I needed pain relief but staff said no because I had to be assessed first… I was too sore and tired to push but Fred wasn’t …and I was served some paracetamol.

Fred begged for his chair to be plugged in; he was suffering with a swollen belly and with his legs not elevated, they too were swelling. I asked for help for him but staff said they couldn’t. At this stage I reasoned with myself that I wasn’t having a heart-attack (I had no grounds for my internal-argument on this but I didn’t let that stop me) …so I told Fred to get out of the chair and he and I dragged it (the weight took us by surprise!) across to a wall with a socket.

OMG if ‘bliss’ was made visual, it would have looked like Fred’s face as he pulled his hat down, his mask up and finally got some comfort with freshly elevated legs and access to so many more positions.

The staff were doing the very best they could and the pressure is no fault of the NHS – it’s clearly the result of years of underfunding that’s forcing patients to endure awful experiences like this. When I first arrived I was quickly given an ECG due to my symptoms… the poor nurse couldn’t get the machine to work and said she’d go find another one as this one was ‘always playing up’ – by the time we finally got a result, so much valuable staff time had been lost on this alone. Much of the machinery looked as tired as the staff.

I was a lucky one… it wasn’t a heart issue or the potential blood clot on the lung they’d also searched for. I actually looked pretty well other than the spasms in the left of my chest which the kind doctor prescribed a course of antibiotics to tackle (*update 5-days later: they worked yay).
...

*My final blood test and xray had taken me into other bits of the hospital where many poorly people were on beds in hallways… I wondered how long Fred would have to wait for his bed. They’d told him at about 3am that he was 4th In line – not many being checked out at that time of the night though, so I was grateful we’d taken the bed he did have to the plug.

*thank you Fred x