We arrived at the hospital a little earlier than we would normally do for our appointment as without paperwork to hand we expected that things might not be plain sailing. We were however pleasantly surprised as the staff in the Clinical Assessment Unit seemed to know all about Val and were expecting us. The radiographer was kindness personified and asked who our consultant was and when he needed the results. I said that we understood that there was a meeting the following day to determine the date of Val’s operation and she happily told us that the report would be ready that evening!
I have never experienced anxiety levels like this before. Uncertainty and a sense of waiting for something to happen merely added to our anxiety. We really want/need to know the date of the operation. Even if it is not the earlier date, as disappointing as that would be, at least we will know. For some reason the hospital staff acts as if they are unaware of the impact on those around the patient.
The hospital where the operation is to be performed needs Val to see a Stoma Nurse. It is something that cannot be done from there and so an appointment has been arranged for Thursday morning, April 13th, at the hospital where the cancer was first diagnosed.
The day before Easter and you couldn’t make it up! Val rang the surgeon’s secretary only to find that she had started her Easter holiday early, having passed all her paperwork over to a colleague. It appeared that all the paperwork was ready to be sent out but there was a delay caused by the need for an anaesthetist to look at the scan and its report, and she herself was finishing work at 2.00. We found this out on our way to the stoma nurse but quickly swung into action as the thought of being left dangling over the Easter weekend was unbearable.
Val rang the pre-op assessment unit. Inevitably the staff nurse who had carried out the pre-op assessment was not at work at work so Val asked the unit administrator to try to speed matters up.
By this time it was 11.00 and so I contacted the PALS unit at the hospital and explained the situation and asked them to do whatever they could to get someone to look at the scan. It was particularly galling that we had been given an appointment for the scan on the Tuesday which kept the prospect of Val’s surgery on the 20th very much in play and to miss out on that slot because nobody had taken the trouble to deal with this was just not acceptable.
We came way from Val’s stoma appointment at 12.30 with nobody having rung us back or left a message. Another round of phone calls ensued and I again spoke to the same lady that I had spoken to earlier in the PALS unit who were surprised that we still hadn’t heard anything. I was really angry although I would emphasise my anger was directed at the situation and not at the person I was speaking to. She said that she would chase it up and said that she had spoken to a senior manager about the situation.
Anxious and stressed we decided to go to the Macmillan Centre at the hospital and related our sorry tale to a lady who listened attentively and the said that she would contact her colleague at the other hospital which she did. While she was making that call, I received a call from the Urology Manager where Val was to have her operation.
She said that they were aware of the urgency but the anaesthetist who was to be present at Val’s operation was in theatre but once he was out she would ask him to review the scan and its report. I asked why when we had gone for the scan on Tuesday, the images and report had not been looked at the day before? If this anaesthetist was so busy then why couldn’t someone else look at it? The answer revealed a degree of preciousness as the anaesthetist who would be present at an operation likes to look at reports relating to that patient. My response was that he would have ample time to do that before the operation but we just needed someone do look at it now to enable the surgery to go ahead. Frustrated beyond belief I played the only card that I felt I had left – I told the Urology Manager that if Val’s surgery was delayed because nobody, given that Easter was upon us, had looked at the scan images and report then I would be making a formal complaint. Whether this worked or it was just a coincidence we will never know but within an hour we got the phone call we wanted – the scan images and report had been looked at and the surgery would go ahead on the 20th.
The sense of relief was immense as that call had ended our uncertainty and we could, within reason, get on and enjoy our Easter with our family. Emotionally the sting in the tail is that the sense of relief that replaced one set of anxieties was quickly nibbled away at as another set of anxieties made itself known. That however will be something for another day.
