Unstructured hate rant about hospitals and all who work in them...

Well, to begin with, no one treats you like a human being. In fact, if you are the relative of a patient you are less than a human being. Less than a thing. You are goddam invisible. At least the patient, that biohazardous mass of chemical reactions and intrigue represents a thing to be processed through the system (or if the patient is ill enough in a sufficiently rare or unusual way so as to present some kind of medical enigma, then it is a challenge, to be solved.) No one tells you where things are, who they are or How Things Work. Silly things, which the mother of a deeply sick child might want to know. Like, when mealtime is? Where mealtime is? Where to get drinking water? Who to tell if you have to leave your child to have a wee or get some food for yourself? Whether anyone will bother to look out for your child while you are away? Other things no one can tell you are why has a not-quite-4-year-old been put on a bay for older kids. (To the chavvy, slummy, scowling 17 year old in the bed opposite and your coterie of boyfriends with their irritating D'n'B ring tones and constant tirade of F-words, I don't care how ill you are, I really don't like you.) Nurses, at least, do tell you their name. And smile. And try to make the kids laugh.

Which is more than I can say for doctors. Particularly consultants. To you, I say learn to speak English. No-speak-a-dee-latiny-doctory-bullshit. If I ask What were the results of her bloodtest? I do not want you to cite reams of meaningless raw data. I want to you say what is normal, and what is not. And if things are not normal, I want you to say what the implication is, and what the next steps are. In Plain English. And, if you come round to me and my daughter on your ward round, please do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye first, introducing yourself and explaining who the 10 other people are too.

To student doctors, I have given Jambeans' history 12 times already so I say Sod Off. We are not your guinea pigs. You can blame A&E and their crap, repetitive system for my utter reluctance to help train the next generation of emotionless medicos.

To the Accident & Emergency system that times their process perfectly to wake you up every 70 minutes exactly (or, more frequently if you are super special) to do something to Jambeans that leaves her no further forward, but successfully deprives you both of sleep in the most tortuous way, I say FUCK YOU ALL. I brought Jambeans in a t 9pm on Monday night because she was severly dehydrated. Something that was confirmed by every SHO and Registrar who saw her. So why, 7 hours later, had she still not been offered a drink or given any IV fluids? I could have succeeded better at home, and got more sleep for both of us.

To the A&E Reg who tried to put a canular into Jambeans twice, and failed twice, I say - FAIL. Go home love, you're not good enough.

To Kate and Ellie, the paramedics, I say - you are both very lovely and I deeply admire the work you do.

To Jambeans I say you are the bravest, sweetest little girl in the whole wide world. Mummy is so glad you are out of hospital and wants you to rest up and get better soon.

To cut a long story short

So, I should be writing about the drama and adventure that was Marrakech, and posting one or two of our billion photos. But instead, I am writing about the drama that is Jambeans, ill, in hospital, with pneumonia, again. Total shit for everyone involved.

Hospital Dash

Horrible week last week. Jambeans woke up with breathing difficulties, vomiting and fever in the wee small hours of Tuesday night. After a couple of hours dithering we decided to do the hospital dash. I did the hospital with J. Daddy stayed to look after Felix and try and get enough sleep to last for both of us. Waited for triage with the usual round of drunks and weirdos. Two of them were crashed out on the floor, and I tried to shield the rest from Jambeans' view. Triage came pretty quickly. I saw the nurse tick the "high priority" box - the equivalent of Defcon 2 - and even though I'm sure that's pretty standard practice for a minor with respiratory distress, it was bloody scary nevertheless. As was the on-call registrar's need to "rule out pneumonia." I'm just a lay-person. These words scare me.

So they attached her to the SATs machine via a crocodile-clip type thingy you have to keep on your finger. Then put her on oxygen, followed by 3 bursts of Salbutamol, all via a mask which Jasmine hated and kept pulling off. They also put some weird cream on the backs of her hands and sellotaped it down. It numbs her hands slowly, or something like that, so they can take bloods later. They also gave Calpol, and took her temperature regularly. Mainly just at the point one of us was about to nod off. Then we went for a chest X-ray. And just when things were beginning to settle down they asked me to administer some steroids which tasted revolting and she tried her damndest to spit out.

It got to 5am. Jasmine and I had been awake since midnight and I had only clocked about 2 hours kip. It was beginning to hurt. We had a quiet stretch just then, after the X-ray - perfect for a few zzzzs. That's when I discovered that Salbutamol makes you crazy. As in bounce-off-the-wall-crazy. Jasmine ran round the room jumping, whooping, playing with the hot water tap and pressing every button on every bit of machinery she could find.

After that Jasmine was on a dose of Salbutamol every 2 hours. It was horrendous. Jasmine was poorly and needed her mummy. She was also manic, and in a public place, so I couldn't take my eyes off her for a second. We got to the children's ward around 7am and I basically had to push on through with her till we got home in the evening.

We got home and my brave, beautiful, darling little girl was on the mend and was being brilliant in the face of adversity. Her Mummy was a quivering, moaning wreck and had aged about 50 years in that short space of time. I'm still recovering.

Hail in July, back to the Whit

weather's gone bonkers. heavy rain. thunderstorms. lightning. we had a hailstorm earlier on. already been soaked 3 times in 2 days.

lots of floods up north. people's houses entirely ruined by water damage. no doubt they'd be none too impressed with my soft southern moaning at a bit of rain.

jambeans went back to the Whit yesterday for another developmental check up. everything went fine apart from my usual inner RAAAAAAAAGE at there only being 5 metered parking spaces within a 100mile radius of a busy london hospital, which meant i had to drive around in circles for 20 minutes, and finally found somewhere to park, but it was miles away, on another planet i think, then got a thorough soaking as i ran across galaxies, with the pram, in the rain, to get to the hospital on time. and then more RAAAAAAAAGE at remembering how crap hospitals are, and full of scummy chavvy people with no manners who push into the lift and can't wait for anyone else to get in too, even if the other people were in front of them, or have a pram - that seems to mean extra shoving. and extra special RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE reserved for all who work in hospitals, especially the admin staff who, even though they sit at that desk all afternoon, can't tell me whether the clinic is running late, or how many people are ahead of me, or how long i might have to wait, even if you ask really nicely because you are on a meter and have a hungry baby who wants feeding so you genuinely do need to know.

the appointment was for 3.20pm. we got seen at 4.30pm. not too bad by their standards.

(had a huge grumpy 'ole woman rant about it in the pm but then boyfie told me that all the hospitals in london cut admin staff first when they're trying to save money, so they are some of the lowest paid and most demotivated people you can find. feeling a wee bit guilty...)

Tooth number 7 definitely poking through