This month has been hard. Who knew- things always come in threes?! Unfortunately, I’ve had to take two weeks off placement as C was in hospital. Honestly, he really scared me for a little while. He was seriously ill and at one point they thought he had sepsis. After his brother had it in February after the flu and was in a coma for 6 weeks, I was envisioning a stay in ICU, and if I’m completely honest, my life as a single parent. I know it really scared him as well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so vulnerable and it broke me a little bit I wont lie. He’s always the strong one, the baby’s been in hospital a few times and despite the whole ‘training as a nurse thing’ he’s always been the rational voice of reason when it’s happened.
Luckily, he was okay, and it was just a small stay and some strong antibiotics. I mean, I’m lucky we also had fantastic neighbours who looked after the baby the whole time and drove us up to A&E in the middle of the night. But it made me realise a lot, and honestly being in hospital is scary especially if you don’t understand what’s going on. The GP for out of hours was great, C couldn’t really walk or talk and was getting worse, so I walked in with a scrap of paper and 6 hours of obs, she asked me if I was a nurse and I told her I was a student (so no, not really). She pinged it all into the PC NEWS chart, looked at me, and said ‘you know what that score means right?’. I nodded. She phoned for a bed for him straight away.
Thing is, C didn’t. He had no idea, and because the GP was phoning to organise things, I had to explain to him what was probably going to happen, and what they were worried about. I don’t think that helped really, I couldn’t explain the actual risks and what the likelihood of it being sepsis was- because at the moment I don’t know. We haven’t done critical care and sepsis starts in year 2. All his experience of that had been was his brother- and that was an exceptional circumstance. But again, all he knew was that his brother nearly died and now he thought he was going to as well.
We were moved to an emergency bed and a nurse came in to cannulate him. Now, I understand that EDs are extraordinarily busy. But not at one point did anyone explain to C what was happening, why they were doing what they were doing, or even what cannulate meant. If I hadn’t had the knowledge that I have, we would’ve both been clueless as to what the situation was.
And that’s not okay.
My 30-year-old, ex RAF, solid as a rock partner was reduced to a scared boy literally in front of me, and he asked me not to tell his mum because she would worry and said that he didn’t want to die.
If someone had just talked to him and explained what was happening, that helplessness could’ve been avoided.
