http://www.isps.org/index.php/publications/isps-liverpool-declaration
I said ma-mama we’re all crazy now
Waiting in the social area to pick up the last of my belongings, I gaze distractedly at a pair of old socks that have been slung carelessly on top of a pile of books. It’s 3pm and I’vejust been told I can go home, Section 1 revoked: my stay in hospital is almost over. Clutching Ken’s arm, I carry a handful of Asda bags for life, as I steer the suitcase on wheels down the corridor and down to the car park where we quickly pack everything into the boot climb in the car and head for home, a 30 mile round trip, back indoors with a cup of tea by 4pm. At 4.20pm the phone rings. The deputy ward manager sounds frantic. You’ve gone without your medication she shrills No, I have some left from my 3 day weekend leave I counter, and surely you’ve faxed my local pharmacy? No, she says, you’ll have to drive back to hospital and pick them up. Five minutes later comes another phone call, and in more measured tones she announces that I am not to worry, the Crisis team will personally deliver the medication to my door the next day. Starting to unpack the next morning I realise it is 11 a.m. and there is no sign of the Crisis team. I have enough medication for one evening. I make some phone calls. To my GP first. She can’t help because she has no paperwork from the hospital and needs to know what the prescription is. Next the hospital pharmacy. They can’t help either, they’ve sent my prescription to the ward. I’ll have to speak to the ward manager. The advocacy service say they’ll phone the ward and find out where my meds are. Next I phone my local ASDA pharmacy. They can’t help. So back to square one I ring the deputy ward manager. Haven’t the crisis team been she asks. Five minutes later I receive a very terse phone call from someone called Will. Brusquely he tells me that the nature of his work means that he cannot give me a precise time of arrival, but he will be with me within the next two hours, and will bring with him some paperwork, that I can give to my GP at my convenience.
Cheered by this news I finish unpacking the suitcase. The time is almost up when there’s a knock at the door. There peering at me is Will and a lady hovering behind him. Come in, I beckon and I shout downstairs to Ken who heads up to the kitchen to see who is here. Will introduces me to Julie. I offer Julie a chair but she declines, saying she has been driving. Will looks me up and down and looks at the chair with the back rest and asks if it is my chair. No I say you can sit anywhere. Ken sits down, Will sits down I sit down. And we all stare at each other. Then comes a series of intrusive, disconnected and personal questions from Will. He then says he’s never me me before. Stating the obvious maybe, but triggering a series of questions in my mind about the very nature of this Crisis team. How do these meetings work, are they assessing me? Someone they’d never met? Are they going to give me the correct medication if they have never me me before? I steer the conversation round to my medication and ask if I can please have the 7 day prescription so I can let the surgery know and organise it from there. Did this prescription start in the hospital booms Will. Yes, I falter. Well you cannot stop it he says, accusingly Excuse me? I never said I was going to stop it, I say, I said I’d discuss with my GP a timescale for tapering it off. Julie says very little. Ken says how tired he is. I start to fidget and Will and Julie eventually get the message and say they’ll get out of my hair, and they leave. How dare these people visit me, offer opinions, quiz me, presume to judge me and act in such an egocentric way? Six days later normal service has resumed; I am sitting in the safety of my trusted GP’s room. She and I discuss my options; she sorts out some appointments. It is calm and measured. I’m ok again, I’m back in the real world. I don’t need the biomedical illness model, I need it like a pounding headache. I need calm caring people surrounding me, I don’t need crazy.
And the beat goes on
Spending ten days in hospital wasn´t easy for me and now I have been discharged I´ve had two GP appointments in three days. The arrhythmia following my electrical injury on 31 July, is not as easy to shake off as I thought. On Monday my pulse was still too rapid. Today my BP was normal.
Before I went into hospital I took only vitamins, minerals and omega oils; now I must take a beta blocker and an anti coagulant each morning and another anti coagulant at night. It feels strange to be artificially slowed in my movements and thought processes At best my heart rhythm will settle of its own accord. At worst I’ll need an invasive procedure to settle it. I´m booked in for another ECG in October.
My next GP appointment is on 19th September – to be continued.
Far be it from me - 