Greetings my Tired friends,
You've probably gathered from the title of this entry that the story as I left it was far from over. After the visit to the GP, my symptoms seemed to quickly worsen. It was as though someone had given my body permission to be unwell now, where I had forced it to keep going for so long. By Friday night, I was practically crawling up the stairs to bed and needed help just getting from the living room to the toilet. Despite having dozed for hours during the day, I had no problem sleeping through 10 hours that night. (I'm currently awaiting a Sleeping Beauty live-action remake so I can send in an audition tape).
On Saturday morning my wake up call came in the form of a nose bleed. I've had nosebleeds in the past but rarely and none that have lasted the 75 minutes I endured that morning. (If anyone knows the world record for the longest nose bleed please leave a comment as I want to know whether it's worth submitting myself for the Guinness Book of World Records - it was always on my bucket list to be in this when I was a kid). The nosebleed lead me to call 111, as suggested by the GP not 24 hours earlier if anything were to get worse or if I gained any new symptoms. I realised there was a good chance that this nosebleed was unrelated to whatever was causing my general feeling unwell, and I couldn't think of anything liver-related that would trigger such an unusual symptom, but I was not about to question the advice of a medical professional as I sat pinching my nose, surrounded by blood-soaked tissues.
What happened next still leaves me somewhat speechless.
I dialled 111 and waited no longer than a few minutes for someone to answer the phone. A woman picked up and neglected to introduce herself but instead jumped right into asking me some questions about myself. We went through the usual name and date of birth formalities and then she moved on to asking me about my symptoms. I tried, as best I could, to explain that I was calling specifically about the nosebleed but only in connection with the other symptoms I had been experiencing and on the advice of my GP. The woman began asking me whether I had tried to stop the nose bleed, to which I rolled my eyes. I told her exactly what I had done to attempt to stop the nose bleed and that it had worked, after an hour and a quarter. She decided to move on to talk about my other symptoms. Once again I relayed my visit to the GP and recounted her advice.
"Have you been on holiday recently?" the woman asked me.
"Yes," I hesitated, slightly confused as to why she would be asking me this. "I got back from Greece on Sunday."
"And did you have your vaccines before you left the UK?" she continued. There was a long pause as I tried to think of what to say. Vaccines? For Greece? Since when did you need vaccines for Greece?
"No," I said sheepishly awaiting a response. The woman didn't miss a beat, her tone completely changed.
"Well why not?" she snapped at me. I was embarrassed but equally confident that you did not in fact require vaccines to travel to Europe.
"I wasn't aware it was necessary," I told her. Instead of backing down here and admitting to a mistake, the woman simply laughed. Yes, laughed. A cold, mean sort of cackle as if I'd said something truly funny except she was laughing at me, at my stupidity, at the stupidity of anyone who has ever gone to Greece without having their vaccines.
I'd like to add at this point that I later researched the vaccinations you should get before you travel to Greece. As it turns out, the answer is: there aren't any. Vaccinations before travelling to Europe are unavailable on the NHS unless you are immunocompromised because the risk is so small that it is not worth the resources.
After this conversation, which ended fairly abruptly following this interrogation, I was referred to two other people before it was decided that there was no reason for me to be seen that day as the nose bleed had now stopped. Funny how easy it is to entirely miss the point. I decided that enough of my energy had been spent trying to explain the condition of my health to strangers over the phone and instead resumed my position on the sofa. I didn't move for the rest of the day and largely drifted in and out of sleep.
By Sunday morning my body was so weak I could scarcely manage to hold a glass. Collectively, my family decided that I was too sick to wait another day to get my blood results back and that I needed to see someone urgently. I was taken into A&E at the local hospital in desperation for someone to tell me what was making me so ill. The problem with going to A&E is that you have no idea how long you'll be waiting and Sunday mornings are not a good time to have to make that trip. I have resolved that this is for two main reasons: the first being that most GP surgeries are closed over the weekend. This means that anyone who wakes up with a sniffle who feels entitled to urgent medical care will find themselves in the A&E waiting room. The second reason is, of course, that many accidents seen on a Sunday morning will have occurred whilst the person in question was out on an all night bender. Unfortunately, the alignment of these two factors makes for an extremely long wait. Yet, I was seen within half an hour of arriving.
I went into the triage room clinging to my dad's arm, out of fear that I would fall. Instead of the usual practice of sending me back out into the waiting room until I could be seen by someone else, I was sent straight through into the main hospital. I was shown past the crowds of people waiting to be seen for various ailments into a quiet back room, for which I still cannot express my gratitude. Within minutes a nurse approached me and took three lots of bloods and inserted a canula into my left arm. She informed me that these were repeats of the bloods taken by the GP on Friday so they could be used as a comparison. I have never been squeamish; I am the kind of person who watches when blood is taken. But as the nurse walked away from me, I felt my eyes suddenly start to black over, as if I was going to faint and a wave of nausea hit me so hard I thought I might throw up before I could manage to tell anyone I felt sick. My skin started to burn up and all I wanted to do was lie down and let the feeling sink me. Not half an hour later, another nurse apologetically took four more vials of blood and I had a repeat episode. It wasn't painful, I wasn't afraid, my body had just decided it'd had enough and decided to make a show of it.
I waited approximately three hours to be seen. I was extremely lucky as there were other people who were there long before me and were still waiting long after I was taken to the majors bay. I was told to make myself comfortable on the bed, which was a relief after having sat for hours on a hard, plastic chair. The consultant stood before me introduced himself and apologised for the wait time. Then he gave me a perplexed look, as if he hadn't yet worked out where to begin.
The consultant explained that my blood results had come back and that they were not what would be expected of someone my age, who is otherwise healthy. My blood count, both red and white cells, was extremely low and still falling. My liver function tests had all come back very high - it was the first time in my life I was hoping for a low score.
"We're not worried but we are concerned," the consultant told me. I wasn't really sure there was a difference but I appreciated his efforts. He proceeded to tell me honestly that they really had no idea what was wrong with me and the only way to find out was to keep me in and run some more tests. I remember vividly having respected him greatly for being so upfront, although I think my parents would have preferred a slight sugar coating; especially once he started talking about autoimmune diseases.
Most people in my situation would probably have been worried but my mind was already ticking over trying to piece together any clues. I've always loved a medical mystery.
Now I had become one.
Charlotte x
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