Where did I leave you? Wheezing and coughing somewhere between London and Bedford I think.

The diagnosis was covid new variant and or whooping cough.

The treatment plan was…well try and get into a hospital.

One thing led to another and I found myself in Bedford A and E one morning.

I drove myself in. Quicker!

I parked up outside. Grappled with a ticket machine and helped other patients do the same.

Feeling so bloody panicked at going in there…I have no happy memories of this place…in I wandered. The warning ticker tape thingy said….minimum 8 hour wait. See your GP if you can. Well since GP receptionist had sent me I could not contemplate yet another fight with her. Triage nurse behind a Midland Bank type screen and microphone took details. Smiled. Told me to queue in the next to me queue next. I did. He told that person whoever it was, that he had signed me in. She signed me in. Took the details . Gave me a name band thing. Told me to sit in the waiting room. Amazingly there were only a couple of other people there and two small children who had already fallen at school. /Good start to the week for those poor parents.

I’d hardly sat down when I was called into triage nurse number 2. You are priority….he rushed through the details once more, took my vitals,….whizzed me into a side room called resus 1 . Doctors appeared.. linked me to machines and drips and nebuliser and took blood and then wheeled me to X-ray then…pushed me back. They were awesome.

Some other panic must have distracted them because there I stayed no one returned for ages. But I was ok, the nebuliser burst its valve…I worked out how to kill it…the Oxygen monitor thing the blood pressure thing and something else all beeped and pinged but all seemed ok ( to me).

Doctor came back in the end. You have a shadow on your lung . You have an infection. You have asthma. No shit Sherlock. OK said I now what? Antibiotics. Steroids. Fluids. But we have no beds. Can you go home? Of course I agreed. To my infinite gratitude Sarah had arrived. We giggled our way to pharmacy. She topped up my car. She worked out how to open the Musk security app on the car, she got me water, she made me laugh and we got through the chaos of bonkers patients demanding their drugs to overworked under resourced pharmacists who could only nod and indicate seats for the waiting thereof. One man…we called him Rod Stewart on account of his too tight white trousers gold sunglasses and ancient wrinkles. He spoke not a word f English but yelled and pointed and caused such mayhem we could only watch in awe.

Anyhow back home now and the hospital rings at least once a day. This the respiratory team who have already proved awesome. They like me.wonder why they’ve not seen me before. They, like me wonder why BARTs under whom I’m seen in their difficult (asthma ) people clinic. BARTs who gave me my first Biologic therapy last month. BARTs who gave me a raft of emergency numbers. BARTs who answer no phones and when eventually I did speak to someone announce they don’t do acute. They don’t have Aand E and no they cannot help!?

Anyhow I’m still high as I kite on masses of steroids and hoping to get a grip as soon as I can.