Gastroenteritis – Back to the UK

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The return to the UK was relatively incident free, I took some Imodium and painkillers, so apart from the general dull pain and occasional strong throb, I was OK. There was only one point on the plane when we were coming in to land that I thought I was going to throw up. I ran to the toilet (which was quite close of course) and as soon as I entered a fruity/flowery smell immediately stopped the nausea, just in time for the seat belt sign to come on. For the rest of the flight I just had to smell my girlfriends lip balm to stop the sick sensation. Even the airport trek and drive home was OK, no accidents and I wasn’t feeling that bad. Of course that changed once I was home.

We got home at about 11:30pm, already knowing that I wouldn’t be back at work until at the earliest Wednesday. We began unpacking, checking e-mails, and generally getting sorted. Then while I was using the toilet I suddenly felt very cold and started to shiver. At first my girlfriend thought I was messing around and was getting annoyed at me! Only after I suggested we take my temperature did she change her mind. It read 39.5°C, my highest yet and probably ever. I blame the Imodium from stopping my body from purging the infection (gf blames the cheeseburger I had at the Portuguese airport). So back to bed, lots of bed covers, cold flannel and a sick bucket just in-case. We were both quite worried and decided to phone NHS Direct… We call them, they take details, they call back within 30 minutes. They don’t call back, we call back again when temperature rises to 39.8°C, they take details, they say they’ll call back in another 30 minutes. We eventually spoke to someone who said to take paracetamol and go to hospital if it stays over 40°C. They also said a doctor would call back in a while as well. They suggested that I don’t have a lot of covers over me to reduce the temperature a bit. Not a great help. A doctor did call back and said to go to the doctor if the diarrhea wasn’t better by Tuesday.

You guessed it, Tuesday comes along and its no better, if anything I’m worse, almost going every hour, if not more. By now I’m eating just potatoes, rice, pasta and bread and drinking litres of water with Diaralyte electrolyte drinks to replace lost sugars and salts. That stuff tastes so awful, although it’s drinkable with a bit of blackcurrant concentrate. I go to the doctor, who listens to everything I say and tells me it will be gone in 2 days and to continue what I’m doing. Not very helpful but he sounded quite confident so I was too. That was a mistake. Thursday comes along and I’m no better, the same as before and again off I go to the doctor. This time he is slightly more concerned, only slightly. He said it will be gone by Monday but just in case to have a stool sample taken to see if I have any infection. He said I would be well enough to go to work on Monday. My dad thankfully takes the sample to the hospital that night.

Monday rolls on and I’m the same, still eating bland food, drinking the horrible drink, and visiting the toilet every few hours with abdominal pains. I phone the surgery and ask about my results, the receptionist is rude and tells me to call again in 2 days. Not to be deterred I call again on Tuesday, to which I’m met by the same rude attitude and she tells me to call in another day. After I insist that I was still ill she eventually agreed to call them up, but told me the line was often engaged. Like that matters to me! Most of the time I’m in the surgery the receptionists are gossiping amongst themselves, they’ve got plenty of time to make a phone call. I then found the number for the pathology department at the hospital and made some enquiries myself. I got through first time, no engaged tone, and it turns out that patients can’t find out their own test results, you either have to wait for them to be sent to your surgery or ask your surgery to call the hospital for the results. I was quite annoyed by this but I asked how long a normal stool sample should take to which they told me 3-4 days. This meant Wednesday so again I call up the surgery. This time the receptionist said that she would not call up until at the earliest Thursday. I was gobsmacked. Either she lied to me yesterday or was just trying to fob me off. I tried to argue with her but she’s had years of practice at being rude to people over the phone, plus I was still feeling bad. On Thursday I called up early, asked about my results (nothing new) and booked an appointment to see the doctor, once and for all I wanted some help and assistance. According to the receptionist it was the only appointment with the doctor that day. I thought I was lucky.

I turned up and sat down in the waiting room, not feeling great. This is when the receptionists began talking about me! Well, they began talking about annoying people that keep calling up to get test results, even call the hospital! How rude and impatient these people were. ARGH. I was eventually called to see the doctor, only to be met by a nurse! Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against nurses, but I had booked to see a doctor, so was just more annoyed at the receptionist. The nurse didn’t seem very helpful, and even told me I should have booked an appointment in the afternoon to see the doctor as the results were more likely to be available then! Was she joking! I was so annoyed I even complained to her about the receptionist. She then wrote a note on my record telling the receptionist to call the hospital for the results and then to call me at home immediately so I could get some medication if needed. So I left that day knowing at least something might happen.

I got a phone call on Friday morning from the receptionist. She had my results (Campylobacter jejuni), and had booked me in to see the doctor that afternoon. For once she didn’t sound rude and seemed to be quite helpful. I go to the doctor that afternoon, go through my life history again and again and he notes that he can’t find my results… More humour from the NHS. It turns out that the results had still not been sent by the hospital to the surgery and the only way we had the results was that the receptionist had phoned up and written down what I had got, I hope she spelled it correctly… The doctor then tells me that diarrhea lasts up to 10 days and that it should be gone by then. The doctor I saw was a bit of a joker but he was being serious! It had already been 14 days and it showed no signs of letting up. In the end I had to ask him if he could give me something for the bacteria to which he was reluctant. I understand if I had a sniffle, or was feeling a bit poorly but I had a proper infection that had caused me diarrhea for 14 days, what more does he want?! I got the anti-biotics shortly after and by the end of the weekend I was almost back to normal and ready for work. Apart from a bit of nausea from the drugs and dizziness from the lack of food, I was mostly better.

One other thing throughout this process, as soon as a UK doctor knew I had been to Portugal, they immediately tried to use this as the cause. It just annoys me that they jump to conclusions about what was wrong with me and just seem to say “leave it 2 days and you’ll be OK”. Even if they tell me that every 2 days they don’t seem to care, by then I’m someone else's problem. I probably could have used a lot less NHS time if I had be dealt with properly in the beginning and not as though I was just pretending to be ill.

Morale of the story? All public health service is crap, that’s why it’s public.