I’m through – finally – my B12 loading doses, and I’ll be brutally honest, I don’t feel like I could ever do that again.
I’m grateful for it, but…on that pattern? The last two doses were hellish.
Hellish, as in, I ended up in A&E on Wednesday night.
A rare political post from me
I want to say – up-front and very clearly- that the staff I dealt with in A&E were lovely. Harried, rushed, but absolutely lovely. Not one person on the staff was unkind – to me or anyone else in my line of sight. I can’t always say that, but I think it’s important to point out.
I was sent because my chest and throat hurt, as did my legs and calves and it was painful to breathe. That’s usually an EKG moment for me, so off we went for bloodwork, and talking to them about it.
The last time I landed in A&E, the target was four hours to treatment. I’m pretty sure that’s currently impossible, given we were there from 8pm to 3am, and the *average* wait time was 7 hours, with 125 people in there with us.
While we waited, we saw some of the behaviour as to WHY the NHS is struggling right now. I can’t talk about everything I saw, but I got to see first hand, what behaviour they accused me of in the past.
I also saw people coughing all over one another in the waiting room. I saw people on drips in the waiting room because as the nurse explained to another person, there were literally no beds available. We saw someone code in the minor injury waiting room, because that’s where the flow was from the waiting room through to getting seen.
People were being sent up to the day surgery ward to sit in other chairs. The nurse started talking about how she’d had CV19 FIVE times already. Five.
Even though my chest was killing me, that it hurt to breathe or move, all I really cared about was stopping throwing up and I bolted as soon as they let me. I’m sure they thought I wasn’t in pain at that point, but having seen the resources they had, versus the fact they couldn’t see anything seriously wrong with me, I went home to manage myself. It was, luckily, the right choice and is noted as an ‘adverse’ reaction to B12 injections.
Having spoken to a friend, it’s likely to do with the fact that I’m dealing with several overlapping types of anaemia, and she had a similar experience, it’ll eventually pass. And to slow down (yeah, right).
The government likes to say that they’re in control, that we’re not in any danger, that they’ve learned from the Covid crisis and the ongoing investigation into ‘Partygate’. I think there’s a lot of trouble coming in the future. And that scares me.
Not for me, but for the people that are sicker than me, because yes, I’m sick, but I’ve watched the world change from a place where the elderly and very sick and disabled were at least supported, to the government choosing to only look out for themselves. If I feel like I am a target, I’m really not sure how to handle campaigning for those more vulnerable than me. And the poor staff that look after all of us.
(c) Photo from Openverse
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
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