January
We have always been a couple who do a lot of things believing in the mantra that the secret of a happy life is small continuous treats and getting things in the diary. I have always thought that having nice things in the diary helped Val where her medical conditions are concerned. Consequently, the year ahead was packed with theatre visits, a holiday to Madeira in early March, a short break in London (early April), a holiday to Portugal in early May, a weekend trip to Paris in early June to celebrate a friends birthday, a family wedding, also in June, and most importantly time with our families.
On January 11th 2017, Val attended an outpatient clinic with a Consultant Urologist who advised that she needed a cystoscopy and in addition a bladder wash and botox injections (cue jokes about not wanting her to come out of theatre looking like Joan Rivers). The date of the cystoscopy was set for March 28th.
We were therefore totally unprepared for what happened next.
February
Sunday February 12th had been an enjoyable day and we had been out for lunch with friends (we refer to it as our 6-up) at a local restaurant. Peter and Maureen were soon to go off to their second home in Florida while Martin and Jeni had not long returned from South Africa. Amongst the banter and the laughs there was also some discussion about Peter’s 70th birthday celebrations in June when we and six others would be going to Paris for a celebration.
Later that evening at about 9.00 as we were watching the BAFTA awards ceremony, Val went off to the toilet. When she reappeared she told me that she had passed some blood in her urine but she didn’t seem overly worried so I didn’t worry either. We eventually went to bed at around 11.00 and I was woken up at 12.45 aware that Val was moving about. She told me that she had passed more blood and showed me the sample of urine she had collected at 9.00 the previous evening. Worryingly, it looked less a urine sample and more like a blood sample.
A quick consideration of her options led us to the only sensible decision which was to go straight to A&E where we arrived at 2.00. It was the middle of the night and A&E seemed very quiet and we were quickly seen by the Triage Nurse and then sent back out to sit in reception until called.
Not long afterwards two policemen arrived with a prisoner from their custody suite. It was clear from one officer’s phone calls that he was not particularly happy to have to wait with the prisoner. They too were seen by the Triage Nurse and sent back out to sit in reception until called. The prisoner and Val were the only two patients waiting to be seen but guess who was seen first – the prisoner!
If you were playing Top Trumps then it certainly seems that arriving by ambulance trumps those who walk into A&E and so every time I enquired when we would be seen I was told that another ambulance had arrived. We were eventually seen by a doctor at about 4.30 and told that Val would have to be admitted having had a catheter fitted. At one point when Val had gone off to the toilet, I had a look around the room we were in with my hands relaxed by my side. By the time I had finished my hands were firmly in my pockets as I spotted dried blood on the bed, numerous cobwebs and one of the ceiling vents was filthy.
Things never happen quickly in hospitals and so although told that Val would be admitted to a ward nobody seemed to know when that would happen. I left the hospital before Val had been admitted and it was later that morning that Val was able to tell me that she had been placed on a general gynaecological ward.
The hospital has strange visiting hours that are apparently designed to help minimise infection. Visitors are allowed from 1.30 – 3.30 and from 5.30-7.30 and it is not at all clear how that two hour gap helps fight infection particularly as sitting and observing activity in around a ward reveals that not all staff wash their hands or use the anti-bacterial gel that is freely available!
I would get to the hospital at 1.30 and stay until 3.30 when, weather permitting, I would walk up into the town centre and find somewhere to eat. By the time I then walked back to the hospital it was 5.30 and I could visit Val again.
The crucial part of each day was the Consultant’s appearance at the bedside where in a brief exchange decisions would be made as to the next steps. On Monday February 13th, Val was still passing blood and was in some discomfort from the catheter caused largely by blood clots blocking it. The Consultant decided that Val needed a larger catheter (18mm rather than 12mm) and intravenous antibiotics. Over the next couple of days there were fewer and fewer blood clots and less discomfort and we were told that the catheter could come out and Val could be discharged on the Friday.
Our hope was that now that Val was an inpatient, the cystoscopy would be carried out during her stay but this was deemed to be not possible due to the need for the bleeding to settle down. We also kept being told that Val would be moved to the Urology ward and this finally happened on the Wednesday.
It is an interesting experience being the spouse of an inpatient and a hospital visitor. The facilities for visitors at the hospital are sparse seeming to confirm an impression that visitors are not really valued by the hospital seen more as a necessary inconvenience. Don’t even get me started on the car parking charges (I did in fact get a weekly ticket once my application form had been endorsed by the ward and this had more than paid for itself by the third day).
The visitor experience starts with arriving at the ward for the start of visiting only to find the doors locked and the need to buzz and speak into an intercom. Somewhere to sit is the next problem as there is so little room around the bed and then there is the issue of toilets. The wards do not have any toilets that can be used by visitors and from the wards that Val was in it was quite a walk to find the only one down the long, main corridor at the hospital. It paid not to leave going until the last minute as when you got there it might be closed for cleaning and in any event there was only one urinal and one cubicle. In fairness there are others, single rooms, dotted through Outpatients but given the numbers of people attending clinics they are well used.
Val wasn’t discharged on the Friday as she experienced a further bleed requiring the insertion of another catheter. The Consultant came to see us later that afternoon and said that providing the bleeding had stopped then Val could be discharged the following day with her cystoscopy to follow in two to three weeks. The original intention had been for Val to have the cystoscopy under a local anaesthetic but her experience of having the catheter inserted had convinced her that it would be better to have a general anaesthetic.
Thankfully the bleeding had stopped and a staff nurse, note not a doctor, decided that Val could be discharged complete with her indwelling catheter.
It is a big moment for patients when they are told they can go home, and just as big a moment for their families. Then the waiting game begins to be issued with the discharge letter and any medication needed to be brought up from the hospital pharmacy – and this can, and does, take hours. Why? Patients who have been told that they are fit to go home can then in effect be bed-blocking for half a day waiting for the bureaucracy to catch up.
Val was discharged with no instructions as to how to manage her catheter. We were told that a medical supplies company would deliver some further supplies to our home over the coming days. Somewhat bizarrely the supplies included a new catheter with no explanation or instructions. This seemed to me to be something where a DIY approach would not have been helpful.
The turn of events meant that we would be unable to go on a planned holiday to Madeira that had been booked early in 2016. There is always a nagging doubt when making an insurance claim that they will find a reason not to pay out. This claim was important because we had more holidays booked and how this claim was dealt with would determine the outcome of the others. The GP was happy to complete and sign the medical certificate and so on Monday March 6th I posted the claim form and supporting documents off by Special Delivery. The documents were received on the Tuesday and on the Thursday, the day before Val’s cystoscopy, we were notified that the claim would be paid.
The catheter became a problem as it proved to be very uncomfortable for Val and movement could from time to time cause some further small bleeds. On one occasion Val rang the Urology ward for some advice and was told that if the bleeding continued then she would need to go back to A&E. This advice seemed bizarre as Val had not been discharged as a hospital patient by her Consultant merely discharged from the ward and so possibly requiring her to sit in A&E for hours waiting to be seen did not seem like a sensible solution. Why couldn’t we go straight to the ward where the expertise in such matters resided?
Rightly or wrongly, we have always operated on the “squeaky wheel” principle believing that it is the squeaky wheel that gets the attention. The issue was getting a date for the cystoscopy and our efforts centred on the Consultant’s secretary and the Outpatients booking office. Not for the first time, and it would not be the last, you felt that you were in competition with other patients for a scarce resource. We are in the fortunate position that we are able to be proactive and our experience of hospitals built up over decades, means that we are well placed to anticipate potential problems.
March
Our efforts paid off, and Val was given a date of Friday March 10th with her pre-op assessment on Tuesday March 7th. We had watched the excellent BBC series “Hospital” and realised that even at our hospital bed availability was an issue as Val would be spending a night in hospital.
We had to report to the Urology ward and were directed to a small waiting room that already had four people sitting there – two patients each accompanied by a family member. The waiting room was L-shaped and at its furthest end was a door leading to a small room. Eventually we were collected by a doctor who introduced herself as the Consultant Anaesthetist who led us into a very small office that almost certainly had originally been designed for something else before taking Val through a checklist of questions to determine her suitability for a general anaesthetic. Apparently Val was on a list of three but the Consultant Anaesthetist said that due to her diabetes she would push her up to first on the list and eventually she was dealt with as the second case on the list.
When we returned to the waiting room, our consultant who was to operate on all three patients, was using the small room to meet with those she was about to operate on. Each would be ushered in, one at a time, and the door closed behind them to give an impression of privacy except every word could be heard by those in the waiting room.
Once a bed had been found for Val, we were taken to the 23 Hour ward for her to settle in and have her observations carried out. Eventually at about 10.10 we were told that the operating theatre had phoned down for Val and without thinking we followed a nurse who was holding her hospital notes. Val had been told to take her pillow with her and I went with Val fortunately as it turned out as she had to walk to the theatre down the long main corridor. Walking was not easy for Val due to her indwelling catheter but it was one of those situations where it was only afterwards that we thought why didn’t we ask or be offered a wheelchair? I left Val at the doors to the operating suite having been told that she should be back on the ward by about 12.00.
The main corridor is where all hospital life can be seen. At the midway point there is a coffee shop and a restaurant and for those with time to kill it is a handy place to sit and people watch – people on their way to outpatient appointment, people visiting loved ones, nurses and doctors with some in their blue scrubs, and then there are those patients going to and from the operating theatres. Some of these, like Val, walk to the operating theatre, some make the journey in a wheelchair or in a bed. Whatever the mode of transport they have to pass along the main corridor. The corridor is not overly wide so people have to stand aside to let those on the beds pass by. Everyone comes back from the operating theatre in their bed – pale, oxygen masks, drips, oxygen cylinders, and tubes – along the main corridor pushed along by a porter and accompanied by a nurse with both in their blue scrubs. It struck me as quite voyeuristic because people cannot help but look and it also made me wonder what implications it had for infection control.
I have to admit, that I was one of those sitting in the coffee shop looking out onto the corridor. Initially I sat there reading my newspaper but as mid-day approached I found myself looking up each time someone passed by on their way back from theatre in case it was Val. As 12.00 had come and gone I went up to the ward to find out if there was any news and was told that the operation before Val’s had taken longer than expected and it was suggested that perhaps it would be a good time to have some lunch while I waited.
Perhaps naturally, I found the prospect of eating not at all inviting and so I went back down to the main corridor and found a seat close by the lifts used to take patients to and from the operating theatres. Eventually, Val was wheeled past and I tagged along behind. Val didn’t look at her best but within an hour she was sitting up, drinking coffee, talking and looking like her old self. She told me that a nurse in the recovery room had told her that a small tumour had been removed. This was not what we had been expecting and all sorts of thoughts went through my mind – surely if the tumour had been removed then that was good, wasn’t it? All we could do was to wait for the consultant to come and see us.
The Consultant eventually arrived, still in her blue scrubs, and told us that it had been a surprise when she had discovered what she described as a small lump (the Beast’s first appearance) located near the opening to the bladder. She told us that she had been unable to remove it. The problem we had was that we were still had to process this information so we never asked the question why before she had gone. Biopsies had been taken and all we could do was to wait for the results. Val was discharged on the Saturday morning with an indwelling catheter fitted.
During that Friday night a young woman was admitted with concerns that she had miscarried. Val was able to hear, with just the curtain pulled across as a gesture towards privacy, a young, female doctor tell this frightened and upset patient that the baby had been miscarried and that nothing was left although a scan was required to confirm this. Now, because this young woman was categorised as a day patient rather than an inpatient she was told that she would have to come back for her scan on the Monday. One can only imagine what turmoil this would have left her in over the weekend. It took the humanity and common sense of a staff nurse to change her categorisation and the scan was carried out. The outcome was confirmation that she had not miscarried and that the baby was fine. Clearly, the young daughter had been absent when her training had covered empathy and bedside manner!
One of our daughters had experience of working in a Urology Department in another hospital and she said that she wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Consultant’s next step would be to order a further scan. This was also what some limited research on the internet revealed. On the Monday morning, March 12th, we sent an email via the Consultant’s secretary suggesting that in the event of the biopsy revealing that the lump was indeed cancer wouldn’t it be sensible to organise the scan now rather than wait to do so at the outpatients appointment which could be some two weeks away? Sadly we never received a reply.
Val also contacted the Consultant’s secretary in an effort to get a date for the outpatient appointment and eventually we were given one for the March 22nd. I think Val was more prepared than I was for what happened next. Val’s name was called out and we were shown to a consulting room where my attention was drawn to a nurse standing just inside the door. I desperately wanted her to leave having delivered her message to the Consultant because if she stayed, and she did, then this would signify bad news and it was. Between them the Consultant and the nurse, a specialist urology nurse, had created a sombre atmosphere, almost funereal, as the news was broken to us that Val had an especially aggressive cancer in her bladder. The Consultant was recommending an urgent cystectomy where Val’s bladder would be removed and this procedure was described as curative. However it was felt prudent that she should have a CT scan to determine if the cancer had spread and if it had then the surgery would be ruled out and chemotherapy would be the way forward. Too numbed and shocked to question why an appointment for the scan had not been made when we emailed?
We did ask how long Val would have to wait for the scan and we were assured that it would be within a week by both the Consultant and the nurse. Surgery would be carried out within 4-6 weeks. I had assumed that the surgery would be carried out by Val’s consultant at the hospital that we were sitting in but such complex operations are only carried out in large regional centres of excellence. The Consultant listed the centres we could go to but was non-committal as to which she considered the best one for Val’s needs and so in the absence of a recommendation or other data we chose the one that was logistically easier to manage. We were also told that the results of Val’s scan would go to the next available Multi-disciplinary Team meeting (MDT), which met on Tuesdays.
Val had been in some considerable discomfort from the catheter and we raised this with the Consultant who agreed that it should be removed. The nurse took us to a small treatment to do this and asked about our family with what appeared to be tears in her eyes and many sad, comforting pats to our arms – the mood music was not good.
The nurse told Val that she needed to maintain her weight and general well-being in anticipation of the operation. Val struggles to maintain her weight at the best of times and so the nurse recommended that she took some nutritional supplements that were low in volume and high in calories although she couldn’t recall the name of the product. She said that Val would be able to get them through our GP. On the way home, Val rang our GP surgery and explained to the receptionist the news that had just been broken to us and was told that the duty GP would ring her straight back. The GP concerned was a senior member of the surgery and Val explained that she had just been given the news that she had bladder cancer, that she would have major surgery in 4-6 weeks, needed to maintain her weight, and the nurse’s recommendation that she used a nutritional supplement. The GP said that she didn’t know of a low volume/high calorie but if we could find the name then it could be prescribed. In the meantime she would refer Val to a dietician.
The next morning Val had an appointment to see the GP who had proved so helpful over the last few months and before that went to speak to the pharmacy attached to the surgery. Within minutes the very helpful pharmacist had come up with four names of suitable supplements which we were able to talk to the GP about and have one prescribed. (As a postscript the appointment to see a dietician arrived – April 18th – but I will briefly return to this later.)
Telling family and friends was difficult when you were still processing what you had been told yourselves. We made the decision that we were going to be open and honest with them and so began a difficult round of telephone calls, text messages and emails all of which then had inevitably spawned more calls, emails and text messages that then had to be responded to. As we said to each other the opposite would have been horrible to contemplate namely no family or friends who loved and would support us.
Friends want to know how things are progressing but more times than not such conversations are full of platitudes and clichés. I found it really happy to talk to my brother and to mates who had been through this with their wives/partners. They knew from experience how I was feeling and could tell me how they had attempted to cope. I, like Val, felt overwhelmed by the speed with which we had gone from treatment for recurring UTI’s to fighting an aggressive bladder cancer. I think we both tried to protect each other from what we were truly thinking and feeling – it’s been the most horrible experience of our lives.
And so began our campaign to get the earliest possible dates for Val so that treatment could commence. The X-ray Department was the first front to be opened up in this campaign as the nurse had said to ring up and chase an appointment. Val rang them on Friday March 24th and although the person she spoke to was sympathetic she pointed out that there protocol allowed two weeks for urgent scans and that there had been 19 requests for urgent scans received the previous day. As an aside Val was told that Consultants could make tweaks to the timings.
So this meant that another front had to be opened up with the Consultant, her secretary and the nurse. The squeaky wheel paid off and we were given a date for the scan – March 31st at 8.00.
There was a pressing need to not over-think and to remain positive throughout but it proved easy to say and difficult to do. The mind wants to play “what if?” games and there were a couple of days following the disclosure that Val had cancer when we felt ourselves physically shivering which I took to be a sign of shock. Saturday March 25th was my lowest day in this process and I sobbed my heart out that morning. I couldn’t help it but I felt guilty because it affected Val who then had a low day on the Sunday. It helped that on both days we had family visiting and there is no greater way to take your mind off things for a while that the fun to be had from your young grandchildren.
Uncertainty is the most difficult aspect to deal with and waiting comes a close second. We are intelligent, articulate people who can use a computer and can argue our case but not everyone is like that and you can’t help but wonder whether they lose out as a result. In a testy email exchange with the nurse, I told her that I only had one wife and I was going to to fight persistently firmly and politely to make sure that the hospital staff did what they said they would do, when they said they would do it. I have longed believed that if there is a difference between an individual’s word and actions then that individual’s credibility can reasonably be questioned. I saw my role as championing my wife and keeping the hospital staff honest.
One of Val’s mantras through this was that she had an eighteen month old grandson who she wanted to see get married. I told Val that nobody had yet said she wouldn’t.
With a date for the scan established, three further issues needed to be addressed. The first priority was to establish that Val’s scan results would go to the MDT on Tuesday April 4th. Secondly to get an appointment with the consultant who would perform the operation and thirdly who/when were we going to be told the results of the scan?
The National Health Service has many problems but the patient and their family’s experience could be improved if the health service staff throughout the organisation took a moment to remember that one day they and their loved ones are going to be patients too and therefore they should treat their patients as they themselves would want to be treated. It is not rocket science and would save the NHS having to put on expensive training courses. I am a firm believer after more than forty years in public service that if you don’t like the public then find a job somewhere else.
The nurse provided us with confirmation that Val’s scan results would go to the MDT on Tuesday 4th as planned and also gave us a date to see the proposed surgeon at his outpatient clinic. This left the question of how would we be told the results of the scan? I must have sent half a dozen emails to the nurse and the Consultant who would reply telling me the sky was blue and the grass was green but without answering my question.
On Wednesday March 29th we received a telephone call from the X-ray department to inform us that due to an equipment issue Val’s appointment needed to be changed to the Saturday April 1st. This just added to our anxiety and concerns that the time plan agreed for Val was going to be jeopardised and I had a frank exchange with the clerical officer who rang who had no knowledge of Val’s condition or the urgency involved particularly as she said the results could take two weeks. The appointment was changed to 12.00 on the 1st.
Running out of options, I rang the Patient Advice and Liaison Service at 9.00 on Thursday March 30th to seek their help. By 10.30 they rang back to say that Val’s scan results were to be considered at the MDT meeting on April 4th and that we would be seen in outpatients following that meeting at 2.45 to be told the results.
In addition to the above, we had further holidays that now needed to be cancelled and claimed for via our insurance. The insurance company were amazing as they received our claim forms on the Tuesday morning and emailed us that afternoon to say that the claims would be paid.
April
In the build up to the next round of medical appointments, we had tried to get back to doing normal things which could be as little as going out for a coffee at the local shopping centre, going to the cinema and seeing family. It had become apparent to me that Val was increasingly feeling increased discomfort from her bladder. We increasingly found that planned outings could be torpedoed by changes to scheduled appointments (never our doing!) or increasingly the need to chase things up ourselves.
Already tired because of many night time trips to the toilet, the pain relief medication on occasion made her almost comatose. It was important to remember that this whole story started with Val suffering from UTI’s and so strong antibiotics were prescribed which added to her sense of tiredness but then also introduced feelings of nausea. It seemed that the solution to one problem in turn became another problem which in turn impacted on the quality of Val’s life.
Saturday April 1st saw us at the X-ray department for Val’s CT scan. Over the course of the first hour Val had to drink a prepared solution and then was taken off for the scan but not before she was given an injection of a drug that helped with contrast. While this was going on I spoke to the receptionist to emphasise the importance of the results going to the MDT meeting on the following Tuesday. She was unable or unwilling to give me that assurance but did say that within moments of Val’s scan being completed the images would be on the hospital system and available to the doctors, adding that any competent doctor should be capable of interpreting the scan. She further suggested that for our peace of mind we should contact the consultant’s secretary to say that the images were available which we duly did.
As the outpatient appointments drew nearer we both started to feel a range of emotions – tension, fear and also despair. We, and particularly Val, needed to be given a glimmer of hope that we could grab and build on.
Monday April 3rd saw us visit a Macmillan mobile advice centre which was at a local shopping centre. The nurse that we saw was lovely and talked us through the likely scenarios that the week might throw up and gave us two publications with one on Invasive Bladder Cancer and the other on Chemotherapy. I had no prior experience of Macmillan and wrongly had associated them with end of life care but this session showed that they offered so much more.
Our eldest son, Jason, had said that he would come to the outpatient appointment with us on the Tuesday. Val and I had discussed how we felt about this impending appointment. Val was scared and fearful on the night before the appointment and in an effort to get her positivity back I said that my view was that surely being told the initial diagnosis was far worse than anything we might be told next. Whatever the Consultant would tell us would still leave a range of treatment options available and we would still be in the game. Up to a point it worked and that point was when we were told that although the scan had not shown that the cancer had spread, although there was a question mark against one lymph node, the Beast had grown. The Consultant described the Beast as shockingly aggressive and it looked as though it was touching the pelvic bone leading her to question whether the Urology Surgeon we were to see the next day would be prepared to operate.
Val was distraught and we were all shown into a side room. Jason is six foot four, a trained paramedic in his mid-forties and he too broke down. Trying to comfort them to hold myself together – just!
I was just on the point of asking Jason to come with us to see the surgeon when he beat me to it by saying he would come. Between us Jason and I managed to talk Val around telling her that the Consultant had told us the Beast was aggressive (we knew that anyway), the cancer had not spread (good news) and we were going to see a specialist surgeon who the Consultant had at last spoken positively about (good news).
As soon as we walked into the Surgeon’s office we were all quickly put at ease as from the outset he made it clear that he was prepared to operate. He didn’t make any promises but it was clear that the operation did not faze him. Jason asked about the Beast touching the pelvic bone and he replied that he would scrape the bone and then sterilise it with a laser. He also outlined a number of options for diversion as the bladder was to be removed and said that his favoured option was to create a new bladder using Val’s rectum. He would not know for sure that this would be possible until the operation started but he outlined the other options.
It was clear that Val did not really have an option other than to have the operation and the Surgeon said that if we were able to decide then and there he would phone his secretary and get a date for the operation. In fact he got two dates – Val would either be operated on April 20th or April 27th.
Val had got her glimmer of hope. I was the one to feel emotional this time as a feeling of relief engulfed me and I had a moment (or two) as we sat and had a coffee before heading back home.
Friday brought a letter with an appointment for Val to go for her pre-op on Monday April 10th. In the few days that followed we had a couple of serious conversations about matters I needed to know and be told about.
The pre-op turned into an experience that I would not want to go through again – indeed I would not want anyone to go through it. Everything was going fine until the Staff Nurse listened to Val’s heart and then said she was going to get a colleague to listen for a second opinion. It turned out that they had heard a background rumble and they decided to get a doctor down to have a listen.
Meanwhile we were taken across the corridor to another room where a nurse took a blood sample, and weighed and measured Val. It was while this was going on that the Staff Nurse came into the room with a doctor who was introduced as a Consultant Anaesthetist. I have to say that I had taken a dislike to him even before he had opened his mouth. He too heard the murmur – Val has been checked over by many medics and has been regularly connected up to all sorts of equipment at the National Hospital in London without any sign of a murmur- and proceeded to say that they would need to find out what it was and set about requesting an echocardiogram.
My concern was that this would delay the surgery and I tried to point this out and became increasingly frustrated and angry as none of those present seemed to grasp the urgency. Indeed, the Consultant Anaesthetist with a smile on his face said that if it was that urgent then the surgeon would have been operating this week! Needless to say he and I will not be exchanging Christmas cards.
I get it now that understanding the heart murmur will inform the type of anaesthetic that Val would be given but at the time he made it sound as if it was a piece of academic research. He did eventually explain this but he could have defused the situation by telling us this at the outset and reassuring us that the surgery would not be delayed – but he didn’t. As I saw Val getting more and more upset I became increasingly agitated as it seemed that what we had begun to build on was being dismantled as nobody seemed to care or was interested in the urgency and anxiety that we felt. This was confounded when the Staff Nurse who had stepped out of the room returned and told us that the earliest date that they had for the scan was April 20th which indicated to me, although they denied it, that the surgery would not go ahead on the 20th. It was suggested that we could approach the hospital that had referred us but although a possible solution it seemed to us that this would start to muddy the waters a little.
It seemed as if we were playing a game of snakes and ladders and Val had unfortunately found herself sliding down a very long snake that deposited her at the end of the queue for this scan. This surely cannot be right and there should have been a process that would enable a patient in those circumstances to be dealt with without delaying the treatment that they were due to have.
Before leaving the hospital, we went to the ECG Department and explained our situation and the urgency, and asked whether it was worth us waiting in case a patient cancelled or did not attend their appointment. We were dissuaded from doing this but it was suggested that we should contact our surgeon’s secretary to see if they could help. Val rang the secretary and ten minutes later she called us back with an appointment at 4.45 the next day. As pleased as I was that we had got this earlier appointment, it made me angry and frustrated that those members of staff we had seen earlier did not sort this out for us and once again we had been left to do it ourselves.
