Three and a half weeks ago life was comparatively normal and then wallop.
I had to go to the renal unit in Brighton. An old hospital tacked onto a new build. Corridors and lifts porters and stethoscopes.
The old git drove us and observed me handing over my protein rich urine sample. Sat in a high backed blue armchair as I had blood taken, then watched me being talked at by two junior doctors.
They know their stuff but its not the stuff I need them to know, their knowledge is drug based and my my poor little 75 year old body can’t do the meds. if the side effects are a camel growing out of your arse thats what I’ll get.
I was told by the Scottish doctor that my readings were too high and that my diabetes was out or control. That my kidney function was shit and that my heart was taking the strain.
We left, stopped off at Lidl for a ton of fruit and arrived home. Whilst unpacking me peaches the phone rung. It was the Scottish medic.
‘We need you to get back here immediately’ I shrieked.
‘We need to keep you in to do some tests.’ I shrieked again and did that doubleing over that bad actors do when they pretend to be agonised. Only I wasn’t pretending. I bunged a pair of pjs, a book a washbag and a box of tissues into a bag and the poor old Northern git had to drive us all the way to Brighton. I left him in the car park.
Up to the 9th level, clutching my bag like an old lady whose lost her way.
I was admitted to an 8 bed ward. Men and women and junior nurses in hairnets.
5.30 and I was in the end bed. Blue paper curtains between me and a wailing man. I was handed dinner under a metal cloche. Mashed potatoes and a plate of mince that looked like my cats dinner. I could not eat.
That was Tuesday – on Wednesday began the tests, scans in the bowels of the earth. No porter to get me back to the renal ward so I hammered on the door of the doctor and pleaded with her to get me back to the 9th floor.
‘The porters haven’t been bought new pagers’ she said.
Back in my corner of the airless ward I was poked and prodded. Cannula’s and blood tests.
It was a sensual overload of white walls and moaning men. Bright lights and the smell of school canteens with overcooked peas and pots of sugarless jelly.
‘We want to do a biopsy’ said the consultant. He the senior registrar flanked by Andrew the junior doctor and a little Chinese boy who was being taught the ropes.
‘What do you really want to do?’he asked disingenuously.
‘Well I want to be 28, with blue eyes and blonde hair and be 6’2″ tall but that ain’t gonna happen’
He cracked a smile.
‘I’ll bow to your wisdom’ I said weakly.
So I was prepared for a heart scan and a kidney scan and then a biopsy.
My kidneys looked perfect even though they aren’t. My heart is perfect even though it has its defects.
And then the biopsy. The Chinese lad asked me to lay on my front nd breathe out.
‘Please can I breathe in first?’ I said sarcastically.
He anaesthetised my back and plunged in a chisel to grab a bit of ky kidney. The Consultant encouraged him but said he needed to do it again since he hadn’t got what they needed.
Digging around he managed two cubes of my kidney and asked me whether I wanted to see his handiwork.
I was wheeled back through white corridors into my bed where I had to lie on my back for seven hours.
Seven hours of looking at the air con. The women in the opposite bed climbed out from under her sheets and looked me in the eyes and told me I would be ok. That was the first time I cried.
I weed the bed and had to ask for hospital pyjamas. Decided to have a wash in the male lavatory but the shower fitment came off the wall.
‘Oh yes it’s broken’ said the nurse.’They haven’t fixed it yet.’
I padded round to another ward and cried as I juggled a bottle of shower gel and a heavy shower head. using the hospital property towel I arrived back at my bed where the man next door was shouting rhythmically
‘Help me. Please help me.’
I left my bed when his stoma bag burst and the smell of shit hung in the air.
I sat in the nursing station as Francis the night nurse cleaned up his sheets.
He died in the night.
Malcom in the end bed took over the shouting. e needed help too and cried all night for assistance.
On Saturday morning I was released. The nurses from Rwanda, India, Tunisia and beyond were wonderful but they were swimming against the tide.
I left and walked out into the wind. Having been under the claggy air conditioning I gulped in the fresh air and waited for the dawter to turn up.
I was released with a bag of drugs.
Statins
Beta blockers
Kidney tabs
Insulin
And a traumatised body. Bruised and battered the medics had done their job.
They had got me better but not made we well. So confused was I when I came out I totally misread the prescription and managed to overdose four times the recommended dose.
After terrifying side effects which had me setting up home in the bathroom. I came off all the drugs, cold turkeyed and finally turned a corner.
Today I announced I’m not taking the drugs and will get better with the help of minimal intervention, food, meditation and the help of my army of healers.
I cannot fault the NHS but what the last government has done to it is almost beyond repair.
Will Karmer’s brigade put it back on track. I fucking hope so.