A visit to the Hospital

It’s not often I find myself sitting in the waiting room at Northampton General Hospital or any other hospital for that matter. Usually it’s for someone else I’m there for, but this time it happened to be me. 

 I would never ever go to hospital unless I knew something was fairly serious, and after vomiting blood and then Googling it, I realised I should definitely go. I had pretty much diagnosed myself before I got there, but I thought I would let the “experts” give the final say. For about a year I’d been having these weird pains in my stomach on and off, a bit like hunger pains. But when they went I just passed them off and carried on as normal, but it seemed this time I couldn’t ignore it.

 Sitting on the doctors chair she asked me some general questions, later on I found out this was her first day, trust me to get an amateur doctor. She got out the blood pressure machine, put it around my arm and then began. I felt rather okay until the pressure on my arm felt intolerable and I suddenly became lightheaded. My vision started going blurry and I remember looking in the mirror and thinking to myself, “What the bloody hell is wrong with me?” 

After all this fiasco, I was admitted to the Emergency Assessment Ward which basically meant they didn’t exactly know what was wrong with me, but it was deemed an emergency nonetheless. I was wheeled in and made to sit on a chair like an old man. The bed wasn’t even ready and I began to feel dizzy again, only then did they promptly make my bed. Then began the long wait for the doctor to come round. Luckily my girlfriend was with me and this made it so much easier because I could have never done this on my own. 

I was admitted for three days and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The food was edible, the TV happened to be free and it gave me a chance to not have to worry about anything. Who said the NHS was bad? I would lie in bed and just think to myself, how my health is so important and that it should always be number one priority. I had always taken it for granted because I never thought at my age I would develop any kind of serious illness.

The doctors had come to the conclusion that it was a Peptic Ulcer which I knew all along. Basically the ulcer had bled which meant I was suffering from internal bleeding and if not treated quickly can become very serious. I was given some medication to help heal it and then discharged as an outpatient; still waiting for an endoscopy, where they put a camera through to my stomach just to make certain it’s an ulcer. 

I have learnt a very stern lesson from this. Always go to your doctor if you’re ever uncertain about anything, because I made the mistake of waiting for it to get worse and it’s definitely something I don’t want to experience again.