#we had our gallbladder emergency removed and then we had to go back bc we passed out in the shower and pulled a muscle

[spruceleaves]

queue ran out while we were in the hospital. sorry about that. it's back up and running now.

[princesircastic-archive]

so remember how I was having a super shitty day? well, here’s why

warning: long rambling post 

last year - August 22nd/23rd, I was in hospital. I was taken to accident & emergency via the advice of the non-emergency phoneline, where I was subsequently left in agony for five hours before I was finally given a competent doctor who knew how to correctly administer painkillers (seriously, the first idiot missed a vein and pumped my soft tissue full of morphine instead. which, by the way, hurt like hell). But I won’t get into that horror show of an experience - just laying the groundwork here. it was discovered that I was suffering from gallstones, which I’d brought up to my doctor a year ago and told it couldn’t possibly be gallstones because I was only 25, despite the fact I made it clear my mother suffered them at the same age. but doctors know your body better than you, obviously, so of course I was an idiot for thinking it. mm. yeah. 

before I was discharged from hospital I was told I’d need surgery to remove the gallbladder to avoid further problems like this, and that I’d hear from the hospital in 4-6 weeks for that surgery.

it was three months before I had to ask my doctor to find out what was happening with it. I’m very much aware that people get bumped down the list because of emergency surgeries, and I’m cool with that - it can’t be helped. which is why I didn’t think twice when I hadn’t heard back in that timeframe, and why I didn’t immediately think anything of it when three months had gone by. it was only early this year that I discovered something had gone wrong.

basically, someone at the hospital fucked up. they were supposed to put me on the waiting list for the surgery and arrange everything, and they didn’t. maybe they got distracted and forgot, maybe they lost my information, who knows what happened exactly - but they fucked up. that is the important thing here. They. Fucked. Up. 

when I finally discover this, I’m sent a letter to put myself on a waiting list to see the consultant surgeon. not for the surgery itself, mind, but to have the same conversation I’ve already had with a surgeon. the waiting list is three months long. I speak to my doctor and she says she’ll write to the hospital to stress the urgency of my case, and to put myself on the waiting list as a back-up. only when we go back to do that, there are now no available spaces left. wonderful.

whilst we’re still working out what to do, I get a letter telling me my clinic appointment at the hospital has been cancelled. what clinic appointment? this was the first I’d heard of it, but apparently I had one on June 12th that no one had bothered to tell me about - and now it was cancelled. okay. sure. at this point I’m thinking maybe they’d put me on the list for an appointment due to my doctor’s letter, and they’re respecting the urgency and bringing my appointment forward, so I await the new letter to tell me when my rebooked appointment is. is it next month? next week? 

no. it’s actually the same date as the cancelled one, only two hours later. what the fuck, right? yeah. I wasn’t pleased. so fast forward to today, June 12th. Ten months since I was admitted for emergency care in the hospital, ten months since I was told I was going to have surgery and I’d hear from them in 4-6 weeks. I spend all of five minutes with the consultant surgeon I’ve had to wait half the year to see, and she tells me I was never put on the waiting list like I should have been, and now that I am going on it, it’s six months long.

Six months. for a surgery I should have had ten months ago. and the only cases she can put as emergency or priority are cancer patients. (whilst I totally respect that, of course, I’m more than a little pissed off at that. I might not have cancer but this was the hospital’s error and not mine and I shouldn’t be punished for it).

I can’t even be put down for any cancellations because I’m a full-time carer and I need a good few weeks’ notice to make necessary arrangements for at home, so I’m stuck at the bottom of a six month waiting list. because they fucked up ten months ago. 

now just in case it isn’t obvious why this is such a problem (beyond the fuck up and having to wait six months), and for anyone who doesn’t understand what gallstones are or what they do, I’ll just explain for you-

ever heard of kidney stones? yes? and how they can be incredibly painful and dangerous? gallstones are very similar. they’re not quite as painful as kidney stones, but they’re not a fucking walk in the park either. I have a naturally high pain tolerance (example: I had major surgery and shocked/confused all the nurses after because they kept offering me pain meds I didn’t need), and I screamed myself hoarse for those five hours until someone gave me morphine correctly because of the agony I was suffering. yeah. it was bad.

what causes gallstones, you might ask? no one really knows yet. they can guess at some triggers, but there’s no definitive cause. gallstones are thought to be caused by an imbalance in the chemical make-up of bile inside the gallbladder. this helps digest fats, for example - which is why one of the suspected triggers for gallstones can be fatty foods. but these vague triggers mean attacks can happen anytime, and anywhere, without warning. I’ve suffered them whilst at conventions in London, which was terrifying in itself, and whilst I was on holiday in Amsterdam. thankfully so far only the one has been serious enough to send me to hospital.

I can do absolutely nothing to stop them

even minor attacks will put me in bed for the entire day, and more serious ones can essentially cripple me for 2-3 days afterward because of the pain and muscle cramping that occurs. you can imagine how this might make life difficult, especially when I’m a carer for a disabled person. my diet is already fairly restricted bc I have several other issues and a lot of foods have negative effects on my health, but now I’ve spent the last ten months in particular constantly worrying if what I’ve eaten is going to trigger an attack. the stress in itself is having lasting negative effects on my health. I haven’t been right since before August last year. it’s even given me some serious body issues that I can’t shake off (and have resulted in me hating 99% of cosplay photos taken of me for various reasons).

I don’t have the money to go private. I have to rely on the free healthcare that is already struggling because our government are complete fuck-ups and liars. I’m aware that because of this, even though I’m on the list, it could be a year before I get my surgery because there are always emergencies or patients who are deemed more urgent than me. I know how hospitals work. I know the shit decisions that have to be made by the people in charge of surgical admissions. I have to live another 6-12 months under this constant fear and anxiety, all because the hospital fucked up.

I’m writing to a service that helps and advises patients to see if I can get something sorted, but I’m not hopeful - and once I’ve had the surgery, my mother has assured me she’s going to make a formal complaint. I doubt it’ll amount to anything, but by now it’s the principle of the matter. 

and then some idiot tried to run me over and had the audacity to imply I was at fault for it. it’s okay. I told him to go fuck himself.