To start at the beginning, go to Part 1.
N and K's notes compiled, with further notes from me in brackets. The R referred to is me. Let's pretend it's short for Red, if you want something to call me. I think it's best I keep my real name off here.
Approx 2:45am sunday: R overdoses on mood stabilisers.
Approx 3:30/3:45am: R taken to A&E.
4-4:30am: Blood tests and pressure taken, urine checked - all clear apparently. Positive for cannabis in urine.
[Googling says that kidney problems can cause false positives for cannabis - given my abdominal pain, and that it hurts when I pee, I'm wondering if this is a possible explanation?]
4:30am onwards: R falls unconscious, stating that she feels 'stoned'.
At some point, the first drip is torn out due to R flailing (not a great word for it, sorry).
[From talking to my friends I was apparently unaware I had a drip in much of the time, which combined with losing motor control and balance led to it getting pulled out when I moved around.]
7/8am: Shift change - night shift have been extremely helpful and friendly. Day shift seemed to simply treat R like a burden, and don't appear to know about her pre-existing conditions, despite it all being in her paperwork from when she came in.
8:30/9am: N told that because she is fine, R will have to leave at 9:30am/after Crisis team arrives and has spoken to her.
9:30am: Crisis team arrive for the first time. R is unable to respond in any meaningful way, and after a failed attempt to leave the bed (due to N being told she had to leave) is left alone. She had hit her head numerous times by this point on the metal bars of the bed, and had added to these injuries with the wall and the floor. From where I was standing at the time, it appeared the nursing staff simply weren't expecting her to be unable to walk, despite being told that even on a good day R has trouble walking. Male nursing assistant appears to decide that she is faking at this point. She had been vomiting and unconscious [not at the same time, I was vomiting, and then later slipped in and out of consciousness, I believe, from what I've been told] until they tried to get her to move, at which point she barely responded and had to be lifted to be able to do *anything*. She was also making pained sounds and clutching at her abdomen.
[From talking to N in person by this point I believe I had lost motor function and balance, hence repeatedly hitting my head when moving around in bed, and I kept trying to curl up on my side and smacking my head into the railings because of that. I was told to stand and attempted to comply and faceplanted directly into the floor from the bed, hitting my head hard on the floor, and when moving around with assistance I understand that I collided with walls and fell onto the floor repeatedly, due to my inability to control my limbs, and whatever was going on with my balance. I don't know when exactly but N mentioned that one of the staff dropped me once as well, when trying to support/carry me. At no point that he is aware of did they check me for concussion despite hitting my head very hard repeatedly on hard surfaces.]
10amish: A&E is swapped back to its normal location. R is left alone with N to await the Crisis Teams next visit. The male nursing assistant convinces one of the Crisis Team that R is faking around this point as well, due to her 'looking out of the corner of her eyes to see if anyone was there'.
[I was apparently still unable to communicate at the time of the second crisis team visit, I need to clarify whether this was because of my inability to speak or because I was unconscious this time. I know at certain points my friends said they tried to wake me up and I was completely unresponsive.]
[This is embarrassing to relate, but hey, I don't really have much dignity left at this point, do I? Apparently at one point I needed the toilet, but as I was unable to walk they brought a commode over. I was unable to pull my pants down myself so they let me pee through them. I was left in my urine-soaked underwear. I was still in them when I regained consciousness on Monday and was finally with it enough to realize they were not clean, and requested a friend get me some clean pants for me to change into. I asked N if I'd wet myself, due to the state of my pants, and he explained what had happened - he was present at the time, but didn't watch me actually pee at my request. And probably cause, y'know, I can't imagine he'd want to watch :P]
11am: N leaves, L takes over.
[Do not have L's notes yet]
[I'm not sure at what point K arrived, but she was definitely there from 1pm, as was L - these are K's notes from this point on]
1:00pm: R unconscious. Extremely difficult to rouse and when able to get a response limited speech capability words slurred and she seemed disoriented. Unable to walk or support herself upright in any fashion. Smacked head off of bed extremely hard as she tried to sit up at nurse instruction - significant bruising to face and she accidentally ripped her drip out [again] attempting to get up - she appeared unaware it had been there even after being informed several times by my self and nurses.
- R made continued references to severe pains and was clutching her abdomen. Asked doctor to examine. when he was shown that pain emanated
from vaginal region he refused to look and summoned us back inside claiming it to be nothing "She seems to be pointing to her vagina so..."
[From discussion with L and K I believe this matches my memory from when I was in pain and became aware L and K were there and sent them away. Although obviously there weren't actually any hornby trains in reality. All they could gather was that I didn't want them there, so they went into another room and then later left the hospital after having been assured that I was being admitted and told they would contact K in the morning before discharging me so she could come and get me. I have a recent history of abdominal pain extending down to my vulva, which I believe K attempted to explain to the doctor after he refused to examine me, but he didn't pay any attention to this information. Also, despite it being apparent I didn't want K and L to see me exposed, and them leaving the room for this reason, when he called them back in after having refused to examine me because I was 'pointing at my vagina' he had left me with my skirt pulled up around my waist and my lower half (with knickers on) exposed. Due to my lack of motor control I couldn't cover myself up, so K had to do it for me.]
[Having spoken to K and L the memory of being in a lot of pain and trying to ask for my painkillers matches a memory of theirs - they thought I was saying 'juice' over and over, but I was clearly frustrated when they tried to give me a drink, and kept saying no, and then repeating juice again. In fact I was trying to say 'drugs' but my ability to speak was so slurred and incoherent the word was unrecognisable. At one point I apparently managed to say 'help me' and tried to get out of bed and with a lot of support headed towards the kitchen. In doing so I pulled my drip out (I didn't appear to be aware it was there) - I believe this was the second time, mentioned a little earlier in the notes - and was bleeding. I assume I was trying to find my coat, which is where my tramadol was, seeing as no one could understand me and get me what I needed, and I was in severe pain. A nurse turned up and I was returned to my bed. The nurse was apparently annoyed with me for having pulled the drip out again. L offered to help put the steri-strip/plaster (not sure which it was) where I was bleeding from where the drip was removed, and the nurse gave it to L and walked off, leaving her and K to deal with me. The drip was not put back in. K and L managed to guess at some point that I was asking for painkillers and asked the doctor for some for me and was refused. They also asked if there was a reason I hadn't been sedated (given I kept injuring myself), and the doctor refused to even bother answering.]
- Staff nurse (name unknown, bald with glasses) and another nurse (bleached blond hair) continually shouted at R and trying to discharge her when she was clearly unable to move.
- Informed doctor of her conditions - Fibromyalgia and Bi-Polar Disorder as well as an allergy to wool. This was apparently the first time anyone had asked these questions nearly 12 hrs after her admittance to A&E. The doctor and previously several nurses had been informed that R lived alone.
[My conditions were definitely told to the staff when I arrived, but the people in charge of my care at this point were apparently completely unaware of them. K asked where my crutch was at one point, and the staff were unaware I had one, and asked why I needed it. K explained about the fibromyalgia, and they appeared entirely ignorant of this information and wrote it down, and K asked if they were then also unaware of my bipolar disorder, and they indicated they didn't know about that either, and wrote it down too. This was *after* they'd decided I was physically and psychologically fine and had attempted to discharge me.]
Eventually decision was made to admit her to the hospital overnight and we left upon R's request having been told we would be contacted when she was discharged in the morning so we could come collect her.
18:00: Recieve a phone call from staff nurse informing me that R was "refusing" to leave A&E and that the police had been called to forcibly remove her from hospital premises.
When I questioned why she was being discharged when we had been previously informed she was being admitted, I was informed "We don't have a reason to admit her there's nothing physically wrong with her. She's spoken to a psychiatrist and he says there's nothing psychologically wrong with her either so we can't admit her" I contacted L and left immediately to fetch R.
[I was unable to speak or walk/control my body when K and L had left me, and was still unable to speak or walk/control my body when K and L returned, yet somehow in the intervening period they claimed I'd talked to a psychiatrist, and that I was physically and psychologically fine.]
- I arrived at the hospital to find R curled in feotal position on the floor with all things removed from her cubicle due to her "throwing things around". Her arms were severely bruised and her facial bruise was showing at this point.
[My memories from when I believed I was on a school trip and trying to uncover a conspiracy and when my employees - the chocolate factory - were doing tests on me are evidently from this period - I was alone on a mattress on the floor during these memories, one of them with curtains around me that match those used to separate cubicles in a hospital, and my motor control and balance weren't working, nor was I able to speak properly. I do not believe I was capable of throwing things around at this point, as I had no motor control - all I can think is that they must have misinterpreted me knocking things over due to my lack of control and balance. I was probably uncooperative at points though, due to the delusions and hallucinations I was suffering at this point - for example the chocolate factory memory they were clearly testing my heart, but as far as I was concerned I was being forcibly held down and undressed while people did tests on me I did not want.]
- We were able to get R to the point she was upright by my self and L supporting her weight when the police arrived. They offered to drive her home. It took All four of us to get her into the riot van and back into her house. [The police got a wheelchair to get me to the van in, as the hospital staff had not provided one and I was clearly incapable of walking. The wheelchair had to stay at the hospital though, it was just loaned to get me to the van.] It was once R was in the van and the wheelchair was being returned that a conversation with one of the officers occured as follows:
Officer: "Has she done this before?"
Me: "What? Try to kill herself?"
Officer: "I meant more the feigning inability to walk?"
This was the first I had heard officially that the doctors believed that R was putting on the issues above, though the use of the word "refusing" rather than "unable" had given me the impression that was the medical decision on my friend's condition. I was distinctly upset by this.
[I remember parts of this, but I thought I was in an ambulance with a paramedic, I was just confused as to why the floor was wooden. I was apparently in fact on the floor in the back of the riot van with L and a policewoman.]
R's condition did not improve. In the end I was left having to stay and keep an eye on her overnight as well as help her to use the bathroom as her attempts to move resulted in another blow to the head.
[K and her boyfriend R stayed overnight, my memory of being a Belgian minister was in fact from after I had gone to the toilet with her assistance - apparently my brain considering peeing an important political statement :P She remembers me making slurred references to 'the message' and collapsing on the floor when she was trying to get me back into bed.]
I am understandably concerned and angered by these events. A visit to her GP on the 18/6/2012 with a description of her symptoms as described above lead the GP to conclude she was suffering from the effects of a concussion.
This is a simple issue that should have been checked for as soon as her first head injury was sustained. But it was not. Instead the staff had already decided my friend was faking her illnesses when a simple check with either us or her
GP could have told them the severity of her mental and physical health problems, that this was not her first attempt at suicide, that she had recently been for an ultra sound for the pains she was reporting to the doctor that had worsened,
and that she has no history faking maladies inorder to gain hospital stays.
[N - She had been asked by the night shift/the paramedics if she had tried to commit suicide before. She explained that she had considered it/had tried, but not by overdose. As far as I can tell, everyone from about 8am onward simply ignored the fact that all of it (except for asthma and the wool allergy, due to R forgetting) had already been written down]
Part 4. (The aftermath)
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