A difficult week

I had a keyhole hysterectomy just over to weeks ago and with medication the pain was minimal and I was feeling fine. I joined a local cancer support charity and went along to their coffee morning last Tuesday which was so good. There was a door to get in to the building and a door to get into the room where the coffee morning was held. I was feeling fine and took a 10 minutes walk to catch my bus. I popped into my GP and they have a broken hydraulic door and I pushed it with my bottom to get in but had to pull it to get out. A huge mistake. I got home 10 minutes later and began to get severe pain and spotting. I CALLED THE GP who advised paracetamol and rest which I did. By the evening I was in a lot of pain so called 111 the UCH oncology number. I was told if I could get to a local small hospital I could be seen by out of hours GPS or if I could get to A and E I could get help. I didn't feel well enough to leave home without medical support. 111 didn't get back to me until 6am the next morning so eight and half hours later and the Ambulance service said it wasn't severe enough to send anyone out to me and I should wait for 111.

My lessons learned from this is do not open heavy doors after such an operation wait and ask others to help and all the services are so stretched if you call 111 you can't guarantee a timely practitioner response and to insist on an ambulance or try to bear travelling. It took me three days of going nowhere and codeine and paracetamol for the pain to reduce and I really want other woman to not experience the same.