"Call to NHS 24"

On the morning of 31st Jan I called as I had been experiencing pain in my upper back & tummy through the night. As I was 21 weeks pregnant I wanted checked out by an out of hours GP as I thought I had a kidney/urine infection & needed an antibiotic. The nurse I spoke to was really helpful & asked me lots of questions to establish my exact symptoms. If I am honest I was quite blasé & played down the severity but she worked really hard to get all the information. She then advised that she would get a paramedic out to me & my initial reaction I am ashamed to say was that I thought it was over the top & I would be blocking emergency help for someone who needed it. I pushed back saying no I can make my own way to the docs. The nurse in a kind manner explained she was concerned & the right thing to do was to get a paramedic out & that she was looking after me & my baby. I was then taken to hospital as my blood pressure was extremely high.

To cut a long story short, I was actually suffering from preeclampsia & whilst in hospital at the end of Jan my health deteriorated extremely quickly putting me at high risk of stroke & fitting with a blood pressure of 198/130 even with medication my kidneys & liver were being affected. Unfortunately my baby was born sleeping in early Feb. Despite this being the worst outcome & the most heartbreaking thing that could happen to me & my husband I am extremely grateful to the nurse I spoke to. Had she not persisted with me & seen through my guise of playing down the symptoms I could have become very ill at home by myself or with my husband instead of being in the care of midwives & doctors.

On behalf of my husband & I would like to say thank you & we really appreciate your help. Unfortunately I never got the nurses name but I would really appreciate your help in getting this message to the nurse who assisted me.