"Monklands Hospital Admission"

After taking what I thought was my first ever migraine with a side of vertigo my GP advised me to attend my local A&E as he was concerned about my symptoms. I was admitted as an inpatient and blood tests and a CT scan were carried out. The whole experience felt a bit surreal and I kept expecting to be told I could go home when my results came back all clear. Nobody could really explain why they didn't think my symptoms were just a migraine and each consultant I saw seemed a bit confused with my symptoms saying that if all my tests came back clear they would give me something for migraine pain. After all my results came back clear I was told by another consultant that he wanted to carry out a lumbar puncture just to be 100% there was no evidence of a bleed on the brain. This was on the Saturday afternoon. That evening I started experiencing some really unpleasant sensations in my shoulder blades and my headaches became unbearable. It was like being hit in the fore head with a hammer.

I was moved onto ward 17 but nobody explained to me that the consultants don't work on a Sunday so I would be staying there until at least Monday. The new ward was really noisy, the lights were left on way past midnight and then put back on again really early. I had to keep buzzing the staff to ask for my pain killers when they were due and at the time I still had light sensitivity and dizziness. It wasn't until Sunday evening that I was told I wouldn't be getting the results of my lumbar puncture that day.

On the Monday morning, again the curtains were opened and the lights turned on a good hour or so before anybody came round with pain relief for me. I was exhausted, in pain, uncomfortable and ready to discharge myself and go home. The other in patients in my room were really lovely and we were all helping to keep each other cheered up. They very kindly said they didn't need the lights on and turned them off for me so that I could take my eye mask off and talk with them.

While I was lying in bed waiting for my pain relief to start working I heard two staff enter the room and start talking (right next to me) about why the lights were off. I heard one say what about the other patients? They told me they was going to turn the lights back on as there were other patients in the room to consider, I tried to tell them it was actually the other patients that turned the lights off for me but they just spoke over me saying it's not like it's a bright sunny day outside.

As they left the room I heard them tell their colleague 'it's ridiculous'.

I hit rock bottom, I burst into tears and felt completely dismissed, I just wanted to go home where I could close my curtains, get some sleep in peace and quiet and control my own pain relief. When the other patients in my room came back and asked why the lights were back on I told them what had happened and they turned them back off again. This put me really on edge as I didn't want the staff to think I had done it. I just wanted it all to be over.

A fourth consultant came soon afterwards and told me that my lumbar results were also all clear and I could go home. When I asked about migraine pain relief (as mentioned by the other consultants) I was told there isn't anything else they could give me and to continue with paracetamol and ibuprofen even thought this hadn't been affective over the weekend.

It took me a further 4 days the recover from the headaches of the lumbar puncture and a further week after that before I was able to return to work. I've since asked my GP what all the tests ruled out but as yet he hasn't received any details of these.

I feel like I was treated like an attention seeker when it was my GP that sent me to the hospital in the first place. The whole weekend felt like I was being tortured and the total lack of patience and compassion I felt from that one member of ward staff was unnecessary. Talking about somebody when they can fully hear you is, in my opinion quite unprofessional. All I wanted to know was why they didn't just try me with migraine relief first, but nobody seemed to want to answer that for me.

After that experience I cross all my fingers and toes every day that I don't ever need to be admitted to Monklands and especially ward 17.