Royal Sussex County Hospital 2020-12-27 Person 1 5 0

The Then I was told that my urine sample had grown a bug called proteus mirabulis and the oral antibiotic that I had been taking would have had no effect on this bug and I had to get put back on an IV antibiotic Gentamicin which you just get once a day and it goes into you over an hour. When you are on this antibiotic you should get a daily blood test to check the level of this antibiotic in your system so that the doctor was sure it was safe for you to get your next daily dose and what amount. I had 2 doses of this and the consultant said I probably wouldn’t be seen by a doctor on Christmas Day but I would be seen by 1 on Boxing Day. I felt much worse on Christmas and Boxing Days and on Boxing Day 1 of the nurses took blood samples from me and 1 of them would have been to check the level of that antibiotic in my system. He also asked the doctor that was on the ward on Boxing Day if he would come and see me because I was feeling so ill. On a common website online called Healtine it stated that more and more doctors were going on the patients symptoms rather than blood tests to check how severe the sepsis is. It said you should be treated for severe sepsis if you met 2 or more of these symptoms and it listed several. 2 of them were if the patients pulse was above 90 and another 1 was if the patient had a decreased urine output. Well my pulse has regularly been over 100 and I last went for a wee just before 12 lunchtime yesterday and it’s now 10 o’clock in the morning and so I’ve not had a wee in 22 hours! My mum had visited me earlier that day and she could see the decline in my health and so she rang and spoke to my nurse yesterday morning and raised her concerns and the nurse said she would ring her back after I had been seen by the doctor. The nurse in charge also asked the doctor to come and see me but at the end of their shift my nurse said I’ve not rang your mum back as the doctor hasn’t saw you and so she was leaving it up to me to speak to her but I said I have to have something to tell her like what were the blood samples like that the charge nurse took that morning and she mentioned this to the doctor who I then saw looking at them on the computer and he just said I wouldn’t be getting anymore Gentamicin antibiotic and that was it, he still never came in to see me. I understand that they probably have more patients than they can cope with but equally the doctor has a duty of care to all his patients. I’ve been in many jobs where I’ve had an unrealistic caseload to manage and I’ve had to work many hours later than I should have just to get the tasks done and this was unpaid and I never even got the time off back to take another time but this doctor went to his handover and then I never saw him again so I can only presume that he then went home when if it was me I would have then came back to the ward and carried out seeing the patients that I hadn’t seen. I’m due to be seen by the consultant today so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this happens. It’s a joke because the hospital has posters up saying our promise to you and 1 of the things on it is that you will be seen by a member of your clinical team every day. It doesn’t say every day except weekends, bank holidays and over the Christmas period! Also I was briefly on another ward before getting transferred to the diabetes and endocrinology ward and it was the acute medical unit. When I was seen by a doctor there he requested that I have a CT abdominal scan done but the doctor that tried to discharge me with the oral antibiotics cancelled it. That shouldn’t be allowed, the doctor that examined me must have had his good reasons as to why he thought I needed that scan. My consultant that’s on this week though said that the scan is still on his radar but I’m so difficult to get a cannula in he didn’t want to send me for a scan where they would have put contrast dye down it and possibly ruined the cannula when it was needed to give me IV antibiotics. I also know my magnesium level is too low and I’m still waiting on that being topped up by IV. As well as the symptoms having a low magnesium level can cause I’ve also been diagnosed with a cardiac condition called long wave QT syndrome and having a low magnesium can effect that and that condition only has 2 symptoms, you are at a greater risk of having a cardiac arrest or your heart can just stop and you die and this is called drop down dead syndrome. So you would have thought that they would have done that with some priority because even if they didn’t know the effects of that on your long wave QT syndrome they do now because I told them. Also I have many endocrine conditions so even though I’ve got urosepsis I still think I’m on the right ward because of my other endocrine problems. 1 of these conditions is having a low cortisol and I have to take steroids daily for this condition and it’s called adrenal insufficiency but some people refer to it as Addison’s disease which it’s not but it’s got exactly the same symptoms and it’s treated in exactly the same way. It’s quite a scary condition to have though because if your cortisol levels drop too low you are at risk of having an adrenal crisis and you can go into a coma and unless you are given an emergency 100mg hydrocortisone injection within an hour then you can die. So I was amazed when I was talking to the night charge nurse about it and she didn’t know anything about it. As I said if I was to go into a coma it looks like I’m just asleep and you wouldn’t do anything about it. Very scary in my opinion. Also because it’s your stress hormone if you are ever unwell then there are sick day rules that you have to follow eg even if I had a common cold I’m supposed to double the daily dose of my steroids and obviously the more serious the illness the more you should increase your steroids by. I said to my nurse yesterday that this is about the 12th time I’ve had sepsis in the last 3 years and whenever I’ve had sepsis my daily dose of steroids has been increased to 50mg by IV 4 x a day. My usual dose is 15mg in the morning, 5mg at lunchtime and teatime. During my inpatient stay in this hospital this time I was given the emergency 100mg IV dose but ever since I’ve been on the ward that’s even supposed to specialise in endocrinology they have just kept me on my usual dose as if I was feeling as well as possible which is hardly the case when you have sepsis. I’m amazed I haven’t had an adrenal crisis! I also wonder whether I’m feeling as ill as I am is obviously due to the sepsis but could any of it be down to the low level of cortisol that I must have? That’s really everything but I will also say that the food here is just ok but the portion sizes may be ok for an elderly person with a small appetite because eg when you choose to have mashed potato with your meal all you get is 1 ice cream sized scoop which is a joke. I happened to be in the conquest hospital in Hastings recently and it’s the best hospital food I’ve ever had. You have a menu but there’s over 20 things on it and you can order whatever you want from the menu so even 2 main courses if you want to but not that you should need to because their portion sizes are adequate unlike at this hospital. Finally I came here from a local mental health hospital because I had agreed to admit myself for suicidal depression and I’ve been seen only twice by members of this hospitals mental health team. The 1st psychiatrist was only with me for about 5 minutes and she was bleeped away somewhere else but she said that I’m not on anti depressants because they were stopped by the hospital at the end of November which I told her wasn’t true and the dose was actually increased when I was there but she wouldn’t listen to me and said she has seen a copy of my drug chart that showed they stopped it at the end of November. She also said mental health inpatient beds are for people suffering with psycosis. I know I’ve spelt that wrong I think and I’m sorry. But I know that’s not true because there was other patients in there who were suffering with depression and even others who had anger issues but it made me feel guilty that I was taking up a bed that I wasn’t entitled to. Then the 2nd person I saw started off our conversation well but towards the end she said you know that when you go back to Millview the mental health hospital it’s going to be time limited! Of course I didn’t know that and I don’t know where she’s got that from? How can you put a time limit on someone suffering with suicidal depression? Obviously I want to be in there for as short a time as possible but I’ve no idea how long it will take before I even start feeling better or that I’m recovering and feel confident that this will continue if I return to my own flat. Again this made me feel guilty that I was taking up a mental health bed that I shouldn’t be in and I must say at this point that I’m 48 and would say that I’ve suffered with depression and anxiety since my early teens and this is the 1st time that I’ve felt the need for an inpatient stay. When I was well enough I used to be a care manager for social services and I obviously knew about safeguarding procedures and felt that what had been said to me and me not getting any anti depressants which the 2nd person also confirmed that as far as I was concerned I hadn’t been on anti depressants since the end of November. So a few nights ago it was stressing me out so much I rang the mental health ward that I was on and spoke to the nurse in charge and all it took him was a few taps on his computer looking at my care notes for him to confirm that my anti depressants were never stopped but around the end of November the psychiatrist increased the daily dose from 180 to 225mg a day. He also agreed with me and confirmed that with my condition there’s no way to say it’s time limited.