Most of us are not doctors or nurses, but many of us are in touch with our bodies enough to know when the medical advice we’re getting is wrong. So what do you do if you feel your medic is gaslighting you?

When I was 25, I had a ridiculous fall in a Sydney greengrocer – not on a banana skin – resulting in a small fracture to my L5-S1 vertebrae. Fortunately, I was referred to a neurosurgeon who prescribed physiotherapy, rather than being in a rush to brutally cut me open. 

Over the years, I had twinges of pain, but nothing that affected my quality of life. I continued with my misspent 20s. Moved to the Middle East, got married, moved to London, my passport filled with stamps, life was (and is) good.  

Then the back problems came back

In February this year, I started getting intense pain around the damn L5-S1 again. Like the horror movie creature that can’t quite be killed off, the pain was back with a vengeance, 22 years later. It was only a matter of time. I’d put on a bit of weight. I hadn’t been as active as I should be. I spend hours at my desk.

Read more: could you use some fitness and yoga classes at home?

It felt like my lower back was being compressed. Sitting down for too long was uncomfortable. Standing and walking around helped, until my club feet and arthritic ankle and knees started aching, for I am an orthopaedic nightmare.

Like the horror movie creature that can’t quite be killed off, the pain was back with a vengeance

Because of my medical history, I knew that something was not right, especially as I kept needing to pee. Dr Google warned of cauda equina syndrome, which requires emergency surgery to avoid paralysis.  

I called the GP and got an emergency telephone appointment – the doctor advised me to go to A&E in case it was cauda equina syndrome and offered to call an ambulance. Instead, I got my husband to drive me. En route, I picked up a letter from the GP advising that a scan “might” be necessary. 

“Might” turned out to be a word used against me by my local hospital, a hospital that I had campaigned to keep open. 

A&E tripping

At A&E, I was swiftly triaged. A friendly nurse gave me codeine for the pain and a blood test to rule out infection. I was moved mercifully quickly to the second waiting room. So far, so good, until a junior doctor called my name from behind his mask. 

From the time we sat down in a cubicle, I got the impression that he wasn’t listening and wanted me out of his hair. When I tried to explain my medical history, he seemed uninterested and kept interrupting me. When I suggested that a scan might be a good idea, he fobbed me off. 

He conducted a rectal examination, which is not my idea of fun, but is necessary to check for possible cauda equina. He asked me if I had a full bladder. I told him no, but he tried to do a bladder ultrasound anyway. A very confused nurse looked baffled at my empty bladder on the screen. Our eyes rolled in unison when the doctor announced that my bladder was indeed empty. No shit, Sherlock. So, I drank a load of water.  

…he wasn’t listening and wanted me out of his hair. When I tried to explain my medical history, he seemed uninterested and kept interrupting me

Another ultrasound confirmed my bladder was full and I was allowed to go to the loo. Weirdly, the junior doctor decided not to do the post-pee scan to confirm my bladder had properly emptied, even though this is how effective bladder function is confirmed and cauda equina can be ruled out. Again, I suggested a scan. The junior doctor said he’d speak to a consultant and sent me back to the waiting room. 

Read article: Are you drinking too much since lockdown?

The diagnosis 

In between WhatsApping increasingly frustrated updates to my husband, I googled private MRI scans – £250 seemed to be the going rate. I have £250, I thought to myself.  

I felt like a neurotic, hysterical middle-aged woman who was wasting his time

Finally, the doctor called my name again. Instead of going into a cubicle for a modicum of privacy, he started chatting to me in a busy corridor, handed me a prescription for an alarming cocktail of Tramadol and Amitriptyline, like Gran secretly handing you a fiver in the hallway. 

He told me to get a physiotherapy referral from my GP. I asked again about a scan. He said the consultant agreed that a scan wasn’t necessary. I asked how a physiotherapist would know what to do with me without a diagnosis. He told me it’d be fine and sent me away.  I felt like a neurotic, hysterical middle-aged woman who was wasting his time. 

As I waited for my husband to pick me up, I burst into tears in front of the hospital. I looked up Tramadol and Amitriptyline on the NHS website. The website clearly states that “it’s possible to become addicted to Tramadol, but your doctor will explain how to reduce those risks,” and that neither drug is suitable for people with a history of seizures. Guess who had childhood epilepsy? Yep. Me. Guess who was not asked about a history of seizures or warned of addiction risks during the dismissive corridor conversation. Yep. Me again!  

Second opinions 

The next day, I went to another local A&E department, musing that I was fortunate to live in London, with this access to healthcare. The experience at the second hospital was completely different. The lovely junior doctor gave me the time and space to explain my medical history and my bad experience. He apologised profusely, expressed horror at the prescription and said I did the right thing in seeking a second opinion. 

So many people might see this doctor in A&E and he might miss more serious conditions

After the previous day’s farcical bladder scan, I swigged another ocean of water so the tests could be conducted properly. Again, I had to endure a rectal examination. Although this time, the junior doctor was professional enough to insist on a female chaperone during the bum-foraging. Then, I was sent to radiology for a scan and X-rays. 

The good news was that I did not have cauda equina syndrome. The bad news was that 30% of my spinal column had eroded in, you guessed it, the L5-S1 vertebrae. If it gets down to 50% erosion, it’s really serious, so at least it had been spotted before it was too late. 

Within a week of getting the much-needed second opinion, I saw a physiotherapist who prescribed exercises that have helped enormously, but I was lucky. So many people would have accepted the words and terrifying prescription from the first doctor as gospel. So many people might see this doctor in A&E and he might miss more serious conditions. 

What could’ve been?

If I hadn’t been my own advocate, what might have happened? A serious prescription drug addiction? A resurgence of my childhood seizures? Further spinal column erosion?  

I had no beef with anyone at the first hospital, apart from the junior doctor and the faceless consultant. I wanted it known that a diagnosis of spinal erosion was missed. So, I made an official complaint and received an insulting, unsatisfactory response from the hospital trust.  

In the email I received, I was told the junior doctor denied my claim that I did not receive sufficient information about the prescriptions for addictive, seizure-inducing drugs. In my complaint, I attached a copy of the GP’s letter that I showed the junior doctor to back up my claim that a scan should have been done. But because the letter said a scan “might” be required, this was interpreted to mean that it wasn’t strictly necessary. I felt like I had fallen down a rabbit hole.   

The fact that the scan at the second hospital revealed a serious issue didn’t seem pertinent, and the trust closed ranks. Their response culminated in them letting me know that I could take this matter to the public health ombudsman if I was unsatisfied. And provided me with the wrong postal address. Submissions to the ombudsman now go to an address in Manchester, but I was given a London address. Just as well I looked it up for myself. 

 My detailed submission to the ombudsman was the end of the line

I received a phone call. I was told that while my experience at the first hospital was not good enough, no further action would be taken, because I had not suffered any permanent damage. The NHS is overstretched, and this has clearly extended into the ombudsman’s office. The person who called me was very apologetic, acknowledged that this was probably not the outcome I wanted. But no more could be done.  

This is genuinely terrifying. Where is the culture of prevention? Where is the drive to improve standards and make sure doctors who miss things will learn from mistakes before they put patients in real danger?  

For the record, I support the junior doctors’ strikes, 100 per cent. It is a hard, stressful, thankless job and it should be well rewarded. Equally, this means the people who do this important job in our NHS should be exceptional. I truly believe this is the case overall, but when mistakes are made – and this will happen when human beings are tired, overworked or just not bothered – there needs to be accountability, and lessons need to be learned. Nothing is gained by letting it slide if you have a bad experience.   

The NHS is not an infallible god. It is an amazing institution made up of dedicated, talented people. But, as is the case with any organisation of real people, real mistakes will happen, including medical gaslighting. Nobody should walk out of a hospital feeling they were not taken seriously. Or that their pain and symptoms were minimised, especially when it results in a diagnosis being missed.  

I am lucky enough to live near two major A&E departments, to be unafraid to be that woman who makes a fuss, to be my own best advocate. But it shouldn’t come down to postcodes or luck. Or the sheer force of personality as to whether you get a proper diagnosis or fall through the cracks in the system. Fixing the NHS is complicated, but remedying a complaints process where a trust can close ranks and serious action will only be taken if serious damage is done might be a good place to start. 

Georgia Lewis

In a career that has spanned Australia, the Middle East and the UK, Georgia has written about all sorts of things, including sex, cars, food, oil and gas, insurance, fashion, travel, workplace safety, health, religious affairs, glass and glazing… When she’s not writing words for fun and profit, she can usually be found with a glass of something French and red in her hand.

The post What if the medical advice is wrong? Defying doubt and trusting your instincts appeared first on Silver Magazine.

Yesterday Laurence Fox tweeted about how we should let cameras into hospitals. I expect he imagines that some kind of exposé will blow people’s minds. That we will see that the fear-mongering is all nonsense and hospitals are fine, with loads of empty beds. Bless him.

My father has been in the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton since the end of October. He’s not there because of Covid, but because he had open heart surgery, and then tumbled headlong into a hideous rabbit hole of cumulative complications.

I won’t give you chapter and verse of the last two and a half months; but in short, he contracted hospital-borne pneumonia, leading to congested lungs, infections that made him mad, kidney trauma, and coughing which broke his chest open again. Once he bust his chest open we entered a new circle of hell, which was repair work, internal bleeds, and secondary infections.

As we stand today he’s had seven operations and spent over a month on a ventilator. He’s been in the Cardiac Intensive Care (CICU) almost the whole time, and he’s critically ill. We might not get him back. It’s been a fun Christmas.

The rise in Covid cases changed everything at the hospital

…they needed more beds in the Cardiac ICU because the normal ICU was bursting with Covid patients

I expect when people think about whether there are enough beds in hospitals, they think of it in terms of counting bedframes and mattresses. I know I did. What I had absolutely no idea about was how Covid pressures affect the logistics of running the existing hospital infrastructure. Here’s a good example:

Dad was moved to a different ward when staff cautiously thought he might be improving. We were concerned he was moving out of CICU too quickly, but essentially it was a juggling act for them – they needed more beds in the Cardiac ICU because the normal ICU was bursting with Covid patients. Already a compromise, mixing patients like that, but no choice.

Once Dad was in the step-down ward, he was OK until a patient came in from another hospital, for the same reason, overflowing with Covid cases. This patient then tested positive for Covid on arrival at Brighton. What happens next in these cases is intense, when someone tests positive. Whether it’s a patient or member of staff.

Operation Cleanup

Everyone on that ward – that’s the patients, nurses, doctors, ACPs, cleaners… everyone who has come into contact with that patient – has to isolate. So that’s all those people off work for a minimum of seven days. The ward is marked Code Red. The remaining staff in those teams and departments immediately have to ramp up their already-probably-illegal hours to cover these absences.

The patients in that ward then get moved to other wards where there are Amber bays, and are put into isolation for 14 days. That means that all hospital staff that now come into contact with them have to wear full PPE. And many of these patients were already gravely ill. Now they face a possible infection too. Stay with me. There’s more.

Go back to the original ward, and they’ve now got to deep clean that ward and EVERYTHING IN IT. That’s all the beds, equipment, cupboards full of meds, nurses’ stations – just take a minute to think about that, and all the kit you see on any given hospital ward. They have to clean everything, every time this happens. And that’s with a load of your team at home isolating too.

And once that’s done, then they can mark the ward Green again, and take patients who are Covid negative from other parts of the hospital. The ward might not be entirely suitable for their medical purpose but that’s just tough right now. Everyone is doing their best.

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This happens in every ward, every single time someone tests positive

Can you even imagine the work involved? Across a large hospital with multiple wards; imagine the juggling of patients. The massive loss of personnel. The cleaning. The time spent doing this instead of nursing. All of this is before they even start to think about where the standard gravely ill patients can go. What about the ICU departments where critically ill people are fighting for their lives WITHOUT Covid. What do you do? Put Covid patients in the bed next to them? No.

What about the ICU departments where critically ill people are fighting for their lives WITHOUT Covid. What do you do? Put Covid patients in the bed next to them?

Once Dad was moved out of the Red ward he went downhill again and ended up being whipped into emergency theatre for yet another chest bleed and infection. Once he came out of theatre the hospital had a dilemma.

He needed critical intensive care, but the entire Cardiac ICU ward was now Red, full of Covid patients. And he couldn’t go to the standard ICU because that had gone Green, and he was still Amber, still in his isolation period. They can’t risk putting him in with the other patients until he tests negative.

So they ended up having to isolate Dad, on a ventilator, in a separate bay, on a Red ward, until he passed a negative test. Not only was this unbelievably stressful for us – if he caught Covid he wouldn’t stand a chance now, it would kill him – but it also meant in order to keep him safe from the Reds, he was in a bay with four beds, on his own.

Ultimately he tested negative a couple of days ago and is now in a Green ICU ward (thank god). But that was four days of him essentially holding up four beds, in order for him to remain isolated from the Covid patients. And this happens a lot. The sliding puzzle they’re playing with the beds is mind-blowing.

This has been an eye-opener for me

Maybe you’re reading this and you’ve already realised this is how it must be. I know I had absolutely no idea. I imagined that you’d have Covid wards and non-Covid wards, and that would be it. Simple.

To a degree that’s true. But what I hadn’t factored in was the impact that rogue infections in other wards would make. Or the need to isolate both staff and patients. Nor had I thought about the relentless deep cleaning going on constantly, or the issues with having enough safe spaces for intensive care patients that don’t have Covid. Sometimes the numbers just don’t stack up, and you end up with insane compromises, like having my dad on his own in a four bed bay, just to keep him safe from Covid.

So next time you’re hearing that there are X number of cases, and Y number of beds, and possibly wondering why it’s such an issue, remember this. This is just a tiny insight into what’s happening in the hospitals and if you could see it firsthand, like I have, you’d be humbled. As for clapping for the NHS – it needs something much more robust than that to support it. But you can start by having a bit more respect Lozza.

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post This is why Covid puts so much pressure on hospitals. An inside view. appeared first on Silver Magazine.

During my latest stay in hospital – the White Palace of Doom – I resolved to take minimum make-up, but make-up none the less. I would keep up standards for all women of the world! There is strength in vanity, so I thought.

But I had not predicted the lack of mirrors on the ward and the effects of major trauma and morphine on my creative skills. It turned out I didn’t wear make-up for weeks. Besides I was too busy dying, or so I thought. The thought of Death, it turns out, is a big threat to vanity. I gave no flying fucks about make-up.

It was interesting therefore how my personality (which I didn’t think I had without my make-up) and the wondrous personalities of the other inmates shone through. Female beacons in the darkness of pain and fear, without clothes, without make-up, without any sense of image or reflections from the mirrors of other people’s judgement.

Over the days I was to be met with the nonchalance of Amazons in adversity and it grew me.

One young girl; well educated, a dentist, struck down with a nasty ovarian cyst, reprimanded a registrar who had shown delusions of grandeur. I had already moaned at said registrar because the nurses were not letting me have water and I was upset and the registrar was giving off a superciliousness that was inappropriate.

But this Amazon did it properly, from a position of professional female qualification, a precision attack on the registrar’s bedside manner. I was so impressed. I had been hysterical! This girl was professional and damning even during an episode of great pain.

The needles and the knives you would think I am used to but no, they get worse as surgical momentum escalates

I have a life-long phobia of needles. It’s a pathetic state of affairs and I am unable to stop what occurs. The needles and the knives you would think I am used to but no, they get worse as surgical momentum escalates. My life is about needles and knives and I will never get used it, ever.

To get me through, I have taken to singing during my blood tests, and the other ‘inmates’ had been warned about the imminent X Factor bad singing… it’s actually more of a ‘lalalalalala’ mixed with screaming and moans rather than anything tuneful. I doubt it even helps me but one can’t help it with phobias, that’s the point.

Anyway, a beautiful lady across the ward, as my song of Hades began, accompanied my lalalalala, as loudly and with as much effort as I myself was putting in. Then the ward started along with her and it was the most wonderful distraction ever as we all sang loudly and out of tune.

This beautiful woman, in the deepest throes of advanced ovarian cancer, cared for me and my trauma

I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. This beautiful woman, in the deepest throes of advanced ovarian cancer and filling huge bags of bloody urine through her catheter by the hour, cared for me and my trauma. I was moved to tears and I will remember her for the rest of my life.

The thing with the oncology ward is that it needs to run smoothly and effectively and patients are unavoidably conveyor-belt treated. It is a busy hospital and patients need fast access, fast treatment and fast discharge. I would have been happy to lie there for months on the morphine but they stop your drugs and you have to get back to normal life at home…

Second morning after my surgery I was a mess. I fainted in the loo. I lost my phone as it had spun from my shaking hands under the sanitary bin. Fortunately another lady took control and despite just having her breast removed the day before and being in her 70s, found my phone. I already knew she was an Amazon. “What do I need my breast for at my age?” she had said, “the tumour is getting in the way of my pace maker.”

She went home that afternoon, there was her house and her husband to run.

For more from Pasha, you can find her writing regularly on her blog
www.pashaduvalentine.blogspot.com

Guest Writer

The post The towering strength of Amazons appeared first on Silver Magazine.