I have briefly mentioned it a couple of times but not really spoken a lot about it but as you are reading this I am going to assume we are still in the middle of a pandemic (or are we in the middle? Just hitting the peak? Coming over the peak? Having a second peak? Who even knows anymore.) . COVID-19 swept through the country, causing everywhere to go on lockdown, pubs and clubs closed, shops started social distancing measures, schools closed and the country started to become more like a ghost country than ever before. Restrictions were put on your life that had never been seen before, even not being able to see your own family as we were all told to stay at home as much as possible and not leave if we had the choice.
As key workers, both J and I had continued to work through the pandemic, though our work patterns had changed quite drastically, and so in reality our lives had felt partially normal. We still got to go to work and have contact with people outside our household.
When I was sick before I was first admitted it suddenly became incredibly clear how the pandemic had affected our country. Doctors surgeries were running on an incredibly restricted opening circumstances. When I first had contact with the doctors (about something completely unrelated) it became very clear that they would need to deal with me at arms length as much as possible. As I went through the process I did manage to see my doctor but had to stand at the front door of my surgery, ring the doorbell, where I was greeted by a receptionist in a face guard who pointed me towards a mask that I needed to wear while I was in the surgery. On a side note, if you can avoid wearing facemasks with glasses then do so, they are not massively compatible, serious steaming up problems. When I went into the doctors they were in full PPE and to be fair to them, they were great despite the mask, gown, face guard and everything else.
As I went through this process more and more it became increasingly obvious that COVID-19 was really affecting everything. Every time I rang the doctors (a lot in the first few days) I had to listen to lengthy messages about looking at the 111 website if I needed information about COVID and appointments were like gold dust. Blood tests were taking longer to be returned because of the pandemic and no matter where you went, people wanted you to try and manage ANY symptoms of anything at home.
As we progressed on to needing to call 111 I was again greeted every time with messages about COVID-19, delaying calls getting through. What did surprise me was that there was never much of a wait for a 111 operator, so that was a bonus! 111 would ask the appropriate questions about anybody having a temperature in the house and all of that but the care I received from 111 past the initial piece about COVID was probably smoother than I ever have done beforehand.
I believe I had three ambulances sent out to me overall, well three sent by 111 and then one that had to be called to administer morphine, so I would say like 3 ½? Each time the ambulance was sent there were more questions about COVID symptoms and paramedics would arrive wearing gloves, mask and gown rather than only putting them on when they got there. By the way, I’m not complaining in the slightest, just noting the differences. Generally the standard of care that I received from paramedics was exemplary and I am incredibly grateful to our NHS.
When going to the hospital in the ambulance I was made to wear a mask and the temperature checks were thorough and regular I attended A&E a couple of times with Jordan or Mum dropping me off and that was a bit more of a palava in terms of the changes that have been made in the hospital. When I first went, it was not entirely clear that they had separated the A&E departments into a “yellow” and a “green” A&E. It was now procedure that you had to go to the front door of the Yellow A&E to have your temperature taken before you were able to go to the Green A&E. So when I walked into the Green A&E straight away (and in a lot of pain) I was not best pleased to be told that I needed to walk to the Yellow A&E (which at the time took me about 5 minutes despite not being that far away) just to then walk back again because I didn’t have a temperature. Now I completely understand why this needed to happen but I am sure that this could have been made clearer to people that were arriving. I clearly quickly became wise to this because for the subsequent trips I got Jordan to pull up to the Yellow A&E to have my temperature taken for him to then drive me round to the Green A&E, not so stupid anymore…
When in A&E masks were not a requirement interestingly and I chose to not wear them for the first few trips until after I had been diagnosed. Personal choice and I figured if I waas in Green A&E then it wasn’t really a problem? Maybe risky but I was also making most of the trips at like 4am so probably wasn’t quite thinking straight! So that was trips to A&E covered in a pandemic, realistically they werent any different to a normal trip to A&E once you got through the temperature check. Oh tell a lie – I was the only person allowed in A&E, so noone was allowed to accompany you. There did seem to be a lot of bending of this rule which did annoy me ever so slightly…but I was going to follow the rules, just the kind of person that I am!
I will talk about staying in hospital during a pandemic in another post! One to look forward to…