This week has been good bad and ugly. I will try to explain. 
As you know covid symptoms which started on 29th July seemed reasonably under control with help from anti virals and respiratory consultant. But just when it seemed like the long awaited trip to Birmingham for the CWG, would actually happen, bam boom my body objected. Hot sweaty shivery. Pewky poopie and dizzy. Everything seemed buggered. Monday I rang GP at the assigned 8am slot. Survived the long call queue and Beethoven tunes. GP rang later. She was awesome. Wanted me to go to Bedford Hospital . Not keen on that idea I texted Jerome. Help! He advised London where I was known. GP referral letter in my hand I arrived in London about 18.00.
All patients have to be processed via A and E. 
A and E that night was bedlam.
Lots and lots  of patients and their relatives the noise and lack of chairs became unbearable. A figure in scrubs and mask stood at the door yelled at everyone. 
There is a 6 hour wait. Please find an alternative health line to assist you unless you are expected or an emergency. No relatives and friends may stay. Please leave immediately. She was shouty,hot, stressy. Poor lady. 

Things quietened down a bit and my name was called. In a loud not at all private! whisper, a figure in pyjama scrubs and mask went over my details again.
As you have covid we need to isolate you. Please stand outside and we will call you when we have a room.

So there I sat on the Euston Road pavement. Along with smokers and anxious patients. Cars and sirens speeding past. One group of ladies became friends self-diagnosing each other and offering panic attack breathing exercises, diagnosing benign cysts and passing round drinks and cigarettes. It would make a great sitcom. But no one would believe me. 

Looking back I have absolutely no idea how I managed to sit out there. Except I remember it was cooler there and the pavement, whilst grubby, was ok propped up against my rucksack watching the world go by. Watching the night sky arrive. Watching Stella beer cans roll about in the breeze.

10.00 pm As darkness fell and the numbers outside did not seem to have changed a pyjama clad hospital person yelled out my name. She said they’d found me a room. Leading me through the shambles of A and E. People everywhere clutching bits of anatomy, escorted by police, ambulance, team pyjamas staring at computer screens. I ended up in ‘majors’ and a glass encased cubicle. How lovely to lie down at last. Things happened quite fast after that. Urology arrived. Medical arrived. Drips. Monitors. Spaghettini wires and tubes going everywhere. CT was fixed. They were all amazing despite the chaos going on elsewhere, in my glass room they were all so professional, calm, logical. We even laughed. I realised the electric sliding door on the cubicle seemed very sensitive to the privacy curtain. No curtain over – it only closed and opened on command. With curtain over, it went totally bonkers opening and closing at random back and forth. I explained it all to each team.
Let’s just ditch the privacy curtain I said. Way calmer! 

By 3.00 am they had found me a bed. More than that, on account of the covid they had me in an isolation room . En-suite. Views over London. People pay thousands for this hospitality.  More drips and spagettini stuff. 

5.00 am nice nurse in scrub pyjamas suggested I get some rest. I maybe slept a bit before the next drip and stuff at 6.00.am. And so it has gone on all week. Not much sleep. Excellent nursing care. Massive thanks to Jerome for sorting it all out on Monday. I am in fact under the care of Infectious Diseases. You may recall this is the clinic above the gloomy STD clinic with the famous ‘Freedom’ clinic at the entrance. 

The usual consultant is on leave but Jerome had somehow got a message to the team and they have taken over my care all week. More on that later. You will never guess who was the assigned consultant! (I’ll explain!)
Urology have disappeared. ID want urology to speed up their procedure plan. 2023 is still some way off!

No visitors are allowed but young G managed to negotiate his way in with some essentials. Water and snacks! Daniel got permission to bring in some accounts I had to sign. He also produced water from his bag! 

Food here is just weird. The catering team told me I have to ask nurses for water. I did. I was given a bottle of warm water. Catering don’t ‘do’ water. I hate to keep nagging the overworked nurses for water. Hence my own supplies. 

Meals come on paper plates and polystyrene cups and plastic knives and forks. Plane analogy warning: Here we are 8 floors up, watching the lights of London at night and the planes of Heathrow by day. Disposable meals arrive and go via the bin. Water is distributed from time to time. No washing up in this hospital!
Toast is rubbery cardboard impossible to cut with a plastic knife.actually I broke a knife doing that! Its all a bit odd. 

But I have been here nearly a week and getting the hang of it.

Anecdotes: 
A Barbadian nurse and I made friends. He used to be a waiter at a place called Daphne’s and a hotel called the House. We laughed so loudly the team in the corridor came to check the action. Why were we laughing?. We had agreed unlimited champagne at breakfast is not to be recommended and should only be tried once. once as in only one morning I meant. Not once a day! 

There’s air con. Fridge. Fan. Views. A weird contraption hanging from the ceiling. I gather it’s a hoist. But. It’s broken. And stuck in position. Can’t be moved. Every single nurse has crashed their head on its dangly bits. I have too. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone,  it’d cause an inordinate amount of paperwork! 

I don’t think the staff want clapping nor the George Cross. They need pay commensurate with, at least inflation. They need more resources as in people. They need more clinics. Cancer is rightly priority but benign conditions are ignored. Then the doctors get the blame , the mighty ship NHS gets more targets more quotas impossible to achieve. They need plates. Dishwashers. They need toast. A lot of crispy toast. Yes toast. That might help. Not plastic bloody cheese cutlery and polystyrene. Whatever happened to saving the planet? Oh and whatever happened to saving the NHS?