Lady Tells about Her Hospital Experience in London

As many of you know, I was recently hospitalized. I wrote a bit about it when I got home, and a lot of you expressed interest in hearing more about my hospital experience in London. As such, today I want to share about it on the A Lady in London blog.

Hospital Experience in London

Before I do, I want to make two things clear. First, this isn’t a political post. I realize health care is a hot button issue in the UK, the US, and other parts of the world, but that isn’t a debate I want to get into here.

Second, this isn’t a comparison of the UK hospital experience and the US one (or the UK health care system and the US one, for that matter). I’ve never been hospitalized before, so I can’t compare my recent hospitalization to any other.

What this is meant to be is a post about my personal experience navigating my time in the hospital in London. It’s an expat’s view of a single encounter, with all the ups, downs, fears, and laughs that went with it.

With that out of the way, here’s the story of my journey through a British hospital.

The Beginning

Actually, the story starts a few days before I went to the hospital. I started feeling unwell earlier in the week, so I went to see my GP.

He did a test and told me I had an infection, but said it would go away on its own in a matter of days. That sounded strange to me, but I trusted him. He was the doctor, after all.

A&E

Needless to say, it didn’t go away on its own in a matter of days. In fact, it got a lot worse.

I ended up with a high fever and was in a lot of pain on the Friday evening, so I went to the emergency room (called Accident and Emergency, or A&E in the UK) when I woke up on the Saturday.

The wait was long and I was surprised and disappointed that there was nowhere to sit in the initial queue. I felt like death, and standing in line for ages made me feel worse. It would have been nice if they’d had a ticketing system.

I finally got to see a nurse, who couldn’t believe my GP hadn’t given me antibiotics (neither could anyone else I saw in the hospital).

She was really kind and caring, and gave me some over-the-counter pain killers before sending me for blood tests.

The Blood Test

The blood test experience was terrifying. The room itself was tiny. It looked and felt like a former utility closet. The phlebotomist was friendly, but held up a big plastic thing she called a “cannula” and told me she was going to “put it in me”.

Having never heard of a cannula before, I was frightened half to death. What was this thing and what part of my body did she intend to put it in?

She said she would explain it as she went, which I thought was an inappropriate plan. I didn’t have the energy to argue, though.

As she started sticking needles in my arm, she said that a cannula was what I know as an IV.

It would have been nice to know that before she brandished the needles, but it was still a relief she wasn’t going to stick that thing in any other part of my body. Ahem.

It was the first of many times I wished they had hospital translators for American English.

The Outpatient Ward

The phlebotomist drew what felt and looked like half the blood in my body, then sent me back to wait for a doctor. I saw one after a while, and he prescribed antibiotics for a kidney infection.

He told me to come back the next day or the day after that, but the person who brought me the antibiotics told me to see my GP on the Monday. It was confusing, but again I felt too unwell to try to get clarification.

I went home and attempted to sleep, but I was in so much pain I was awake for most of the night. I went straight back to the hospital in the morning and saw the same doctor I had seen the day before.

He seemed a bit upset and confused as to why I was there again, which confused and upset me since he had told me to come back. Maybe he forgot. I don’t know.

He said he could give me a saline drip and send me home after lunch if I wanted, but that he couldn’t do anything more for me. I agreed, not knowing if it was the best thing to do or not.

A nurse came by and tried to put another cannula in my arm. Her attempt failed and was extremely painful. I was so nauseous at that point I didn’t think I could handle any more pain after the first try.

I told her to stop and that I would just go home, but she said I had no choice. I could either have someone else make the second attempt or let her try again, but I couldn’t go home.

I still don’t understand why. Do patients waive their rights at a certain point? I was too weak to argue, so I let her keep jabbing needles into me until she succeeded. It was horrific.

The doctor came by again and was much friendlier than before (maybe he’d just had a bad morning). He said he was going to try to find a bed for me in the inpatient ward so I could stay overnight.

I’m not sure why he went from saying I should leave after lunch to saying I should stay overnight. It was one of many times I felt confused by the lack of information I received.

Later in my stay a friend took charge and started asking for information on my behalf. It helped a lot, and taught me that I needed to be more assertive in getting people to tell me what was going on.

In any case, someone soon came by to tell me the doctor was worried I had a virus on top of the infection, so they were going to move me to another ward to quarantine me in a separate room. I felt like they were telling me I had Ebola, but I went along with it.

The New Ward

They put me in a wheelchair and took me to the new ward, where I had a private room for most of the day. The nurse was incredibly friendly, which helped me relax a bit. We had a couple of funny encounters, which also lightened the mood.

First, she weighed me. The scale was in kilograms and she started to convert my weight into stone for me. I laughed and told her I didn’t know stone, only pounds.

She laughed and said she didn’t know pounds, so we both laughed and decided to let the kilograms be what they were. I was happy to remain in ignorance of my weight anyway (more on that later).

Second, when the pain got too intense for over-the-counter drugs, she said she could give me codeine. She asked if I’d had it before, and I said I once took a Tylenol with codeine.

She had no idea what Tylenol was, and I didn’t know what its British equivalent was. I tried to Google it, but still couldn’t find a name she recognized. We laughed and decided it would be fine.

It was, but I still longed for a hospital translator.

The afternoon passed in a haze of pain and uncontrollable shaking. The nurse offered me morphine, but I was too afraid to take it. Later my friends laughed at me. Maybe I should have tried it.

The Inpatient Ward: Day 1

In the evening the staff finally found me a room in the inpatient ward. They wheeled me down the hospital corridor and into the elevator in my bed.

It was every bit as fun as it looks in the movies. As ridiculous as it sounds, it was a highlight of my hospital experience in London.

When I arrived in my room, I was greeted by the nurses. They were kind and took good care of me. In fact, I felt like I was in good hands with all the nurses I met during my hospitalization.

But soon I was shaking again and my skin was turning an odd shade of purple. The nurses seemed worried that my hands were blue and my fingers a waxy white, but we let it go.

I also learned I had missed the dinner service. I wasn’t really hungry, but I hadn’t eaten more than a sandwich all day so thought I should try to eat something.

I was lucky to have a friend visiting who went out and bought me some food. I don’t know what I would have done if I had been on my own. Gone hungry, I guess.

I drank some orange juice when my friend got back, but it caused sharp pains in my stomach and I got nauseous all over again. I decided to wait until I was given my next anti-nausea injection before attempting to drink or eat again.

At 10pm, my temperature spiked to 40 degrees Celsius. The nurse seemed really worried, but given I only know body temperatures in Fahrenheit (the weather never gets that hot in London), I didn’t know how bad it was.

I Googled it and learned it was 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The nurse immediately did a blood test and I started getting nervous again.

Around 11pm, I was finally able to eat without feeling sick. The food helped me feel a lot better, and I was able to go to sleep for a few hours.

The Inpatient Ward: Day 2

I thought I was going to be discharged the next day, but they were still worried about my fever. A doctor came by and told me I would have to stay at least another day or two.

At breakfast I learned that it was a blessing that I had eaten outside food the night before. The hospital food was hit-or-miss.

The lunch and dinner menus were pretty extensive, but apart from a vegetarian curry I wasn’t too excited about it. Not that I had expected much.

They were supposed to send me for an ultrasound that morning to make sure my kidney wasn’t damaged, but they put it off until the following day. I don’t know why.

They also came late to give me my antibiotics in the afternoon, which worried me. The nurse said she had been away and someone was supposed to cover for her, but didn’t.

At one point, someone came in and asked about my regular medications. I didn’t have them with me, so she said she would get the hospital pharmacy to prescribe them and send them up. They never did. I don’t know why.

In the middle of the day I started feeling somewhat better. Boredom replaced the feverish haze I had been in up to that point, and I got antsy.

Thankfully I had hundreds of messages from friends and readers to cheer me up and give me something to focus on. It meant the world to me to have so much support.

A friend stopped by in the afternoon to bring me some clean clothes, a toothbrush, my medications (which the nurses later locked away in a safe), food, and my laptop. I was grateful for that, and for the company.

That evening I tried to take a shower. Little did I know I wouldn’t meet with much success.

The cannula meant I couldn’t bend my arm without extreme pain (which is strange since they told me I was fine to bend my elbow when they put it in).

Washing my hair with one hand wasn’t easy, nor was the rest of the shower. Afterwards I learned that fastening a bra with one hand is not a skill I possess either. At least it made me laugh.

I stayed another night in the hospital, a bit dismayed at how many times people came into my room to draw blood, give me injections of blood thinner, and generally turn my body into a human pincushion.

It was painful (two weeks on, I still have dark bruises all over my arms) and made me want to get out as soon as I could.

The Inpatient Ward: Day 3

But it wasn’t meant to be. The next morning my temperature was still high and my blood pressure, which had been extremely low up to that point, was not rising. My hospital experience in London was due to continue.

On the bright side, the doctors finally decided I didn’t have a virus after all. They moved me into another room with five other women, which seemed like a disappointment at first (I liked my private room), but ended up being a good thing.

It cheered me up to be around other people and made me grateful to learn I was the only patient in the room who was going to walk out of the hospital without any long-term consequences of my illness.

When I found out some of the others had been hospitalized for months, I also felt sheepish about feeling bored after three days. It gave me perspective, which I needed.

Another positive development was when I went for my ultrasound. It showed I had no kidney damage. I was also sent for a chest X-ray, which was quick and painless.

I never found out the results, but I imagine they were normal given I didn’t have anything wrong with my chest (I was told it was just a formality anyway).

The doctor came by in the afternoon to tell me they were going to keep me in the hospital for at least another day. I was sad to hear it, but not surprised.

I told her I was concerned that my stomach seemed really big, and asked if it had to do with the infection. She said it might, but (politely) told me it probably had more to do with the fact that I was eating full-size meals and lying in bed all day.

So, yeah, I was just getting fat. I laughed, then felt disgusted with myself, then laughed again. It made me realize how much I take it for granted that I spend hours walking around London most days.

The rest of the day was filled with work and visitors. Thankfully it all went smoothly and I was able to enjoy the company of a couple of friends.

One of them entertained me with stories of a hospital stay of their own. We laughed so hard I thought I would damage my kidney from it.

That night I slept better than I had in days, likely because I had only slept a few hours each night and couldn’t seem to sleep during the day.

The Inpatient Ward: Day 4

The next morning I woke up with a splitting headache. It stuck with me all morning, and I was worried it wouldn’t go away.

I got some work done and tried to ignore the pain, but it was persistent. It made me nervous that my hospital experience in London was going to be extended again.

A new doctor finally came by in the early afternoon. She told me that my fever had stayed down for long enough that they were comfortable discharging me. I was so relieved.

I waited an hour or so for the discharge letter. Someone brought it by, unlocked the safe with my medications in it, handed them to me, and said I could go.

It was a bit anticlimactic, but I’m not sure what I was expecting. A party? A pinata? A mariachi band?

I changed out of my hospital gown and into my regular clothes, found someone to unlock the door of the ward for me, then spent ages wandering down corridors asking people for directions for how to get out of the hospital.

I felt completely disoriented. Thankfully a kind nurse took me under her wing and walked me to the exit.

Getting Out of the Hospital

When I went out the main doors, I felt like I had never been happier to see the sun or feel fresh air on my skin. My private room had had open windows, but I still felt like I had been stuck in a stuffy space for days.

I got home shortly after, and the exhaustion hit me hard. I spent most of what was left of the day sleeping.

The next day I tried to walk to the post office (less than 10 minutes away from my flat), but was so weak I had to stop on the way home to rest.

It took over a week before I had my energy back, and longer before the pain in my side went away.

To make matters worse, blood vessels in my eye burst a few days later (maybe because of the blood thinner?) and I ended up back at my GP’s.

The doctor I saw said it wasn’t serious and would go away on its own in a couple weeks, but I’ve looked like a zombie with all the bright red blood filling the white of my eye ever since. Not exactly what I needed.

Still, I’m happy to report that I feel much better now.

Thoughts on the Experience

So what did I think of my hospital experience in London? It was a mixed bag, but my main feeling was one of having received good care, especially from the nurses.

I was really scared the first two days, and I’m glad I could trust that other people were responsible for keeping me alive.

That said, I still can’t help feeling frustrated that if my GP had given me antibiotics when the infection started, I never would have had to go to the hospital in the first place.

I’ll be upset about that for a long time, and I certainly won’t let another doctor tell me an infection will go away on its own.

In the meantime, I’m grateful to have my health again, and hope I never have to have another hospital experience in London (or anywhere else). I wish the same for you.

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