A Sunday trip to hospital

And he said, "you have endometriosis so you must know everything about it because people always do, so you know it can't be treated, so what do you want?".

After a couple of days of building pain, I woke at 00.45 on Sunday morning with even worse pain and spent the next few hours trying to stop myself from being sick. I've been living with endometriosis for many years now and so I know I can define "normal" pain, and I knew this wasn't it. What was happening? Was it another cyst rupturing? Was it something entirely different? Was it my appendix? So many questions and in the middle of the night definitely no answers. It was going to be a long night. At 07.45 I rang 111 (the NHS non emergency line) and spoke to someone regarding my symptoms. She put me down as needing an immediate call back from a clinician and so I waited. It wasn't too long before I got the second call and discussed the situation. It was highlighted that due to the ongoing COVID situation there was a lack of advance doctors or people who could assist but I would be put down to get a call back within a couple of hours by an out of hours GP.

Sunday went past in a flash, I got two apology phone calls from coordinators checking that my symptoms weren't worsening but still with no timescale of when a doctor would call me. It was by the third call at 19.15 that I said my pain was worsening and the lady advised she would escalate to her supervisor. At 20.15, over 12 hours after the first call I made, I had a nurse practitioner call me to tell me I needed to go to the Urgent Treatment Centre at the hospital to be assessed. Great, just great.

We got to the hospital to a queue of people outside UTC. The advice was I had to go on my own so I was dropped off and joined the queue. By this point it was 20.30 on Sunday evening, it was dark and chilly. I wasn't expecting to stand outside so I huddled into my hoody and waited. I was stood outside for an hour before I got called into the foyer to speak to the first triage nurse. He asked what my symptoms were and I started with my usual statement which was that I suffered with endometriosis and I know normal pain etc. At that point it was when he said "you have endometriosis so you must know everything about it because people always do, so you know it can't be treated, so what do you want?". I was a bit stunned. I smiled and said I was advised to come here to be checked. He said "do you still have your appendix?" I said yes and he said "I can check that right now" followed by pretty much pouncing on me in the foyer and pressing on my abdomen. "Nope I can tell you now its not that". By that point I said well 111 said to get checked even if its to check I haven't got a water infection. Luckily for me, the nurse who I believed to be in charge had appeared and she quickly jumped in and said come with me I can sort that for you. I'm hoping she heard how dismissive he was of me, she was a lot more sympathetic and led me to the toilet and advised to see her after. When I came out the guy was there saying "look look its fine, she just needs to drink water shes fine." Who was this guy?! And should he really be working at a hospital?.

Anyway to cut a long story short, it was picked up that I had ketones in my urine and I had low blood sugars. I was asked by another doctor at this point if I was eating and drinking. I responded saying that as I had felt nauseous all day I hadn't had my normal amount but yes I had been eating and drinking. She again repeated the question. A bit taken back I once again said yes I had. It was at that point the following words came out of her mouth "are you dieting, is that what it is?" excuse me? I mean I could take this as a compliment, maybe I'm looking nice and slim, or maybe I should do the opposite and take offence that I was now being accused of dieting when I had just given the exact reasoning and response to her first question. I couldn't believe my ears. She dismissed me and asked where the nurse in charge had gone and I was left bewildered in the chair. A minute later the nice lady returned. She said I was dehydrated but wasn't concerned so was happy that there was no infection. I asked if I could have anything stronger for the pain which she advised they couldn't do and that I needed to go to my GP. Argh really! I guess I should just be grateful I didn't have an appendicitis or water infection....

I left the hospital just before 22.00, defeated, in no better shape and quite frankly stunned at the level of support I had received. The whole day I had spent defending the NHS and accepting the delays because we all know the impact the pandemic has had. But after the comments by the first man and then the accusations about dieting, its hard to continue the same level of understanding. Unfortunately this is an all too familiar story for so many women suffering with endometriosis. When will it change? Will it ever change? Currently the wait time for surgery is 2 years. I have an MRI in 3 weeks time and then the idea of waiting that long for surgery is soul crushing. We can't even get stronger medication to help us when its unbearable. So my question is what are we meant to do?

I can deal with living with a chronic lifelong disease most of the time, but some days it really hits home and I wonder, what did I do wrong to be dealt such a crappy hand of cards??

A x