A trip to A & E in The View from the Terrace

It was a beautiful day yesterday, sunny and quite mild. The promise of spring was everywhere. The catkins are coming out on the goat willow, the magnolia is covered with buds and the daffodils are almost up. I would love to be out in the garden, in fact I wanted to go on a snowdrop walk this weekend but I woke with a migraine and didn’t feel up to exercise, maybe another time.

I got an emergency appointment with my dentist last Monday and she was able to fix my broken tooth. She made a piece to replace the bit that broke off and stuck it on with a special adhesive. She said we will see how that goes and if it breaks again she will put a crown on it. She said that I need to be careful with muesli because of the nuts. I had only found very small pieces of nut in the brand that I buy but I have decided to stop eating it. I was hoping that the oats would help lower my cholesterol but I found that Weetabix do a version made of oats, so I am switching to that. I have seen enough of the dentist over the past few months so I am not eating nuts at all at the moment.

I was still having some breathing problems the day I went to the dentist but it was not so bad though I was getting other symptoms, I was feeling feverish and a bit light headed as though I was coming down with a bad cold but no cold developed. Strangely when I was in the dentist’s chair and she adjusted it so that I was lying flat I felt almost normal. I continued to feel well afterwards and Hubby and I went for a coffee at our favourite coffee shop and then to Sainsbury’s to get some shopping. I found a beautiful blouse in Sainsbury’s which had my name written all over it! Hubby was nowhere to be seen at that point so I just went to try it on. It was my usual size but seemed a little tight. I went to get the next size and that fitted fine. That was a little worrying but I have since checked and I haven’t put on weight so maybe it was just the way it was cut, anyway, I love it, it is beige with a pattern of mountains, deer and foxes and I can’t wait to wear it out.

By Tuesday my breathing was almost back to normal so I made an appointment with my GP for just over a week’s time and was fine until Friday when, just after lunch, it all started again. I gave it a half an hour to see if it eased, it didn’t, so I rang the doctor and asked if I could come down. My GP had told me she needed to see me when it was happening and it was happening, but the receptionist said they couldn’t fit me in as they had no appointments. I explained I had been told to call when my breathing problems happen but she insisted there was no one available and said, if it was an emergency, I should ring 111. I was starting to feel feverish again as well as breathless and there was an ache in my upper back. I was a bit worried so I did ring 111 which is our NHS advice line. They asked me a lot of questions and, because I was breathless and had back pain, they said I should go to an urgent care centre. The lady then said she couldn’t see one in our area and she would like to send a paramedic to me. I really felt I was not that ill, but she said I needed to be seen within an hour so I said Hubby would drive me to A & E

By now it was late afternoon and I knew A & E gets busy Friday evenings so I got Hubby to make some sandwiches to take with us. We decided to go to the one in Abergavenny rather than Hereford as Tony has been there and said it was much quieter. We arrived at 5.30 and I was seen by a nurse about 10 minutes later who took my blood pressure and temperature and checked my blood oxygen level. She said I was OK to wait in the queue and sent me back to the waiting room to wait for the doctor. We waited, and waited, thank goodness we’d had the foresight to pack those sandwiches. We joked that we might have to miss Eastenders at 8pm. Well we didn’t miss it because they had a TV in the waiting room and it was on the right channel. We saw it all and continued to wait. The room was quite small and was packed. Eventually after asking twice how long it would be and being told there were a lot of emergencies that evening I was called in to the doctor at 10.30.

I had no idea things were so bad and our NHS is so under resourced. There were people almost in tears from injuries, people with young children running around and shrieking and plenty of people who were just fed up with it all. It seemed to be mostly staff shortages that were causing the problem. Also more people go to A & E because of the way GPs work nowadays. I remember a similar thing happening to me in the early 80s. I had been ill and feverish and had seen the GP who diagnosed a lymph node infection. He gave me antibiotics but I got worse. We rang the GP on a Friday afternoon because we were going away the next day and the GP came out to see me. Nowadays it’s really hard to get them to come out and they won’t even see you at the surgery unless you ring in the early morning, so I ended up going to A & E when my GP could have checked me over and then referred me to the hospital via the normal appointment system. You can no longer see your own GP out of office hours. They used to take in in turns to cover home visits even in the night if necessary. I really think it should never have been changed. The doctors don’t have to work longer hours they just need to be more flexible. Surely if you want office hours you shouldn’t become a doctor, after all other services like police and the fire service accept this. I’m sure some people on Friday night were made more ill by that long wait.

I can’t fault the staff. They were lovely. I saw a really nice doctor who told me he was from Romania, one of those immigrants some people want to get rid of I suppose. I’m glad he stayed and I hope he doesn’t leave after Brexit. He was very thorough. They did a range of blood tests, an ecg and a chest x ray, but couldn’t find anything wrong. He even spoke about the possibility of it being anxiety but I really don’t think so as it is triggered by heat mainly and sometimes comes on when I am in bed on my laptop and very relaxed. He said the only other test he could do was one for blood clots but he thought that very unlikely as I don’t have sharp pains or swelling in my legs. He explained the problem with that test was that 50% of people are positive but most are false positive and then they have to admit you and do other tests. I just couldn’t face that so I declined. He told me to tell my GP I had been to A & E as they weren’t looking after me very well if I had to do that, then he smiled and said perhaps not to put it that way.

So I still don’t know what is wrong with me, but at least I am reassured that my heart is OK and the chest x ray was clear. I am glad they did an x ray as I did have a little niggling fear. My father died from lung cancer in his 50s which we always felt was down to having run a pub and working in a very smoky atmosphere. When we lived there my grandmother had some white sheets that she packed away in a drawer on the top floor after she moved in with us. She used to take them out and wash them every 3 months because they had gone be yellow. That was 2 floors above the bar and I slept in a bedroom right above it all through my childhood. But the x ray was clear so I can stop thinking about that.

I am now thinking maybe it is some form of allergy. I was prescribed a steroid nasal spray for nose bleeds a few years back. At that time I was diagnosed with allergic rhinitis. I had a little of the spray left at the back of the medicine cupboard and I tried it again when my breathing got bad before the dentist, it did help a lot. I am less breathless when I breath through my mouth. Perhaps I have an infection and that is why I feel feverish sometimes although nothing showed up on the blood tests. I will talk to the doctor about that when I see him.

Today I am feeling much better, no migraine after having one running for several days. Still a little feverish and a little breathless every now and again, but better. I am thinking of going into town to get my hair cut as it is a mess. I would really like to go on that snowdrop walk but I think my hair needs to take priority, perhaps we can do the walk later in the week.

It’s Hubby’s birthday next Sunday. His present just arrived, I have bought him some pastels for his art. He will be 73 which is a scary thought. I will be 72 this year. I do hope my health settles down. We had hoped to go to Italy this year but I am nervous about going so far when I don’t know what is wrong with me. So I’m thinking maybe Ireland. I’ve wanted to go back there for years. I fell in love with the country and the people when we had 2 weeks there in 1980. I also want to see if I can find out any more about my 3x great grandfather John Doyle who came from County Cork. I have come to a brick wall with that line and really need to go to the Nation Archives in Kew. I have been thinking maybe a trip to London in the spring to visit the archives and see a show or two and to Ireland in the late summer. I haven’t broached this with Hubby yet. He still wants to go to Italy, but I am nervous about my health. Ireland is not so far and we speak the same language. I am looking for the right time to suggest all of this to him as it feels sensible to stay closer to home until I know what is causing my symptoms.