I didn't see THAT coming...

How I discovered riding in an ambulance isn't as much fun as you'd think.

I bloody hate January.

I always have, but this year it’s had a particular sting.

So, what’s been occurring?

In December I was one of thousands who came down with ‘flu.

Like lots of people, I sucked it up, thinking it would pass in a week or so. After seven days of sweating and shivering, with a raging temperature and chills, and pain in my chest and back, my wee turned brown. I collapsed in the bathroom, and like the adverts you see on telly with the elderly, I lay there for an hour before my husband found me.

We rang the GP who told us to call 999 immediately.

The ambulance team were amazing. My blood pressure was so low I couldn’t stand, and I was in a lot of pain. To be honest, I was barely aware of what was happening, other than trying to be helpful. Our bedroom is in the loft, up a steep, narrow flight of stairs, which meant the stretcher couldn’t turn, so getting me out was challenging. We eventually got out the house, and I can now say with confidence that travelling in the back of an ambulance isn’t as much fun as you think it would be.

I can’t remember much about A&E other than it was thorough. Questions, scans, lots of needles, and possibly the most painful insertion of a catheter ever experienced.

Then my X-ray and CT scans came back. I had severe pneumonia, Acute Kidney Injury and sepsis. Things happened quickly; drips, super-strong antibiotics via IV and orally, and I was transferred to the Emergency Assessment Ward.

I spent two days and nights there, in almost constant pain, with sensory overload with the screams, shouting and sound and smell of poo from people losing control of their bowels.

On the third evening I was transferred to a Respiratory Ward, and felt a surge of relief. Surely it would be better; or at least quieter?

I was the youngest by far in a ward of six women, all very elderly, most of whom seemed to be in varying stages of dementia. I was transferred at night, which disturbed them. It nearly caused a riot. The woman to the left of my bay began raging the moment I’d been attached to new drips and the curtain was pulled round me.

“Who are you? Why are you here?!” she yelled at the top of her voice. Then she got out of bed, and started yanking at the flimsy curtain that separated us with angry tugs that belied her size and age. She was FURIOUS.

“What are you doing here?!” YANK.

“What’s going on?!” YANK.

The curtains were a cream colour, and the light from the corridor behind her illuminated her shape so I could see her angry shadow, arms raised and grabbing the curtains. I was terrified. It was like something out of a warped horror movie; I was trapped in a bed, in pain, unable to move, and a very scary old lady was trying to attack me.

“Why are you here?! What’s going on?!” YANK.

At that moment the nurse came back in, and gently but firmly took hold of the woman and led her back to bed. She wasn’t happy about it, but she went. My curtains were now open, and I could see half of the ward.

Suddenly another old woman appeared, standing at the end of my bed.

“I want a word with you” she said, in voice that could start a bar fight.

The nurse took her by the arm, and she was gently helped back to bed, muttering furiously.

The curtains were pulled back round me, and we were left to it. Presumably to sleep.

Another woman was now shouting: “I want to get up! I want to get up!” followed by a hacking, mucus-filled cough that made my stomach turn, and a banging that sounded like her hand hitting the metal frame of her bed.

The woman opposite me shouted into the gloom: “Will you just shut up?!” but it made no difference.

“I want to get up! I want to get up!”

Hacking cough.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“For God’s sake, will you be quiet?!”

“I want to get up! I want to get up!”

Hacking cough.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I lay in the half dark, and tried to count to ten, over and over again, to distract myself, and calm down.

About an hour later (I’m guessing it was an hour, it felt like a week), the woman to my left woke up again.

“I need a poo! I need it now! It’s coming now!”

Oh God, no.

“It’s coming now! It’s coming now!”

I could hear the nurse trying to navigate the woman onto a commode, and it didn’t sound easy. By the sound and smell of things, her poo really did arrive quickly, and I’m not sure it made it to where it was meant to go.

“I want to get up! I want to get up!”

Hacking cough.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The machine attached to the woman to my opposite and right had been beeping since I was wheeled in. It was the kind of noise your washing machine makes when it has finished its cycle; loud and insistent. Every now and then the nurse would come in and switch it off, and then about two minutes later it would start again, for about another half hour until the nurse came in, switched it off, then it started all over again.

This went on all night.

At some point, it got light. Things had calmed down enough that we were all dozing, which made it the perfect moment for the overhead strip lights to be turned on full beam, and a breakfast trolley to arrive.

It was like the moment on an overnight flight, when you have JUST managed to get comfortable and block out the terrifying turbulence, the screaming baby, the inconsiderate idiot kicking your seat from behind, and nod off… only for the lights to be switched on, a cold bacon and egg sandwich plonk onto your fold down table and a knackered looking stewardess offer you tea or coffee with a look that says she couldn’t give two shits which one you choose because she hates you for being here and just wants this night to be over.

It was a bit like that, only the nurse on the morning shift was nice – as were all of the nurses I encountered, they were amazing. As she strapped the blood pressure monitor to my arm, stuck the thermometer into my ear, and attached fresh antibiotics to my cannula, she asked how I was feeling.

You know that thing where you’ve held it all together and then someone nice asks how you are, and you fall apart? That happened. Rather than just saying: “I’m fine” as I usually did, because I was aware that there were people there who were ‘really’ sick, I said how I felt.

Tears leapt from my eyes, and for the first time since I’d been admitted to hospital, I cried. I didn’t know how to explain it, so I just said: “It’s so noisy, and the lights are so bright, and I’m in a lot of pain.”

The pain part was something she could help with, so after more examination of my scan results, and consultation with the doctors, I went from paracetamol to codeine and morphine. Every part of me breathed out and went “ahhhhh….”

Note to self; being a big brave girl and not saying how much pain you’re in when you’ve lost 80% capacity in one of your lungs to severe pneumonia and infection is not a smart move. Get on the strong stuff ASAP. You are also one of the people who is ‘really’ sick.

Daytime in the ward was less fraught.

The lady who’d shouted for hours that she wanted to get up was visited by her family, who seemed very nice, and sat by her bed quietly chatting as she slept. I knew why she slept all day; it was because she’d had a busy night.

The lady with the beeping machine was visited by her husband, who spent all day with her. He brought in newspapers and they read them quietly, every now and then having a little chat about what they saw. They made each other giggle. They spoke in the kind of couple shorthand that comes from a lifetime of comfortable companionship. They were adorable.

The lady to my right seemed to sleep 24 hours a day. I barely heard anything from her, other than when the nurses came to check. She had no visitors.

Nor did the lady to my left. The one who had furiously and scarily tried to yank my curtains off their pole. During the day, she was chatty with the nurses and with anyone who walked by, calling out hello and asking who they were. She took quite a shine to the lady opposite me; the one who had stood at the end of my bed in the dark, saying she wanted “a word”.

This lady had lots of visitors; all of them vibrant elderly women who popped in to chat and gossip and generally cheer her up. It was nice to hear.

The lady to my left decided that she wanted to become friends with the lady opposite, and asked the nurse to introduce them. So she did. She quietly spoke to both her and her friend, asking if they’d mind coming over and introducing themselves. They were a bit surprised, but to their credit, they did it.

From behind my curtain, I heard chairs being pulled up, and the three women introduced themselves. They were all a little shy at first, asking questions about their lives outside of hospital; what did they do, where did they live; did they have family?

And then the lady to my left shifted gear. It happened quickly, almost in an instant. Her voice changed; it became stronger, younger. She announced that she had always liked the lady opposite, ever since they had first met at an art gallery event. She’d admired how she dressed, and the lipstick she wore. She had been hoping for years that they would become friends because they had so much in common, and it was so nice to see her again and get the chance to talk.

The lady opposite handled it beautifully, and went along with all of it. She listened and agreed, and so did her friend, and the three of them had a full conversation about a time in their lives that never happened. Only to one of them, in her mind, it had.

Eventually, the friend said that she had to go, and called the nurse to help her friend back to bed. They all said their goodbyes, and once out of earshot of the lady to my left, I heard them quietly whispering to each other about how strange that experience had just been. But they were kind in the whispers.

I had my own visitors; my parents came, and my daughter. My husband Nick came in twice a day, every day, to bring me breakfast and lunch, and then later some dinner. I didn’t have much of an appetite, and what was on the food trolley didn’t inspire at all. My taste buds had gone all strange, and nothing tasted as it should. It was like I could taste every ingredient at super strength, and everything was either too salty, too sweet or just too disgusting.

I hadn’t left my bed for four days, but time didn’t seem to pass in the normal way. My heightened senses were overloaded with being surrounded by constant noise and smells that I couldn’t block out. I work from home most of the time, writing quietly on my laptop, mainly in complete silence so I can concentrate, or with some quiet classical piano music in my headphones. So being stuck in the room I was in, whilst feeling so poorly, was a lot to process.

I asked Nick bring my headphones in so that I could try to zone out. I used them during the day to watch things on my phone when I had the energy to, but they really came into their own on the fourth night.

Things were kind of normal until around 10pm, after the last round of medication of the day had been administered and the bright lights were finally switched off. The nurse agreed that I could have a sleeping tablet to try and get through the night. I swallowed it gratefully and hoped for the best.

I put some classical piano music on and tried to relax. It was difficult anyway to try and sleep on my back, half sitting up, but there was no other way to do it with the jagged-feeling catheter looping out of my undercarriage, and the cannula on my hand attached to the drip.

Then it started.

“I want to get up! I want to get up!”

Hacking cough.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Oh my God, will you shut up?!”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The machine attached to the lady to my opposite right had been as quiet as a mouse during daylight hours. Right on cue it started to beep.

And then, she started talking in her sleep. But not in the voice she’d used all day when chatting with her husband, which was very quiet and frail. This voice sounded many years younger, full of energy. She began a full, loud and enthusiastically articulate conversation that lasted for hours. It started with someone arriving at her door that she was very pleased to see. She invited them in, and they had a hearty (although one-sided) conversation, that she thoroughly enjoyed.

Her chat lasted for hours. The beeping last until morning.

At about 2am, the lady to my left woke with a start and began shouting: “What’s going on?!”

And then she started ripping my curtains back again.

“Let me in!” YANK.

“Let me in!” YANK.

My curtains were being wrenched open at pace, and any moment now she’d by standing by my bed. The bed I couldn’t get up from.

I reached over and pressed the buzzer, praying the nurse would come quickly.

“That’s enough!” she said when she bustled in. “Stop pulling this woman’s curtains. Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

I heard the sound of the lady angrily going back to her bed, and being settled in. It seemed like moments later and she was snoring. Just like that, it was like it never happened.

The nurse adjusted my curtains, and left.

Bang, from the woman opposite left.

“I want to get up!”

Hacking cough.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“For the love of God will you be quiet!” yelled the woman opposite.

“And then I said to her, you can’t be serious! That’s not where you plant geraniums!” announced the woman opposite right.

Beep went her machine.

Beep.

Beep.

I turned the volume up in my headphones and tried to breathe…

Day five dawned like days four, three and two.

Nick arrived, and was still with me when the doctor came to do his rounds. He’d also been with me the previous day when we’d been shown the latest x-ray and CT scan of my lungs, and had it politely but firmly explained that there was no chance of going home because I needed to be pumped with antibiotics that were too strong to be taken orally (as well as the ones I was being given orally, every four hours), to get the infection under control. I also needed fluids as I was still dehydrated, so I wasn’t going anywhere.

I tried again, with this doctor, explaining that I had barely slept a wink in four nights, and surely I needed to sleep to recover? He could see my point, and seemed agreeable. Yesss…

I know. It’s pathetic. Trying to play one doctor off against another so I could escape, when all the evidence pointed to the fact that I needed to be in hospital. But I also needed to get out.

I smelled terrible. I had managed to brush my teeth using bottled water and a sick bowl, and I’d been given a bed bath and a change of hospital gown, but I really wanted a shower. I asked if my catheter could be removed, so that I could try and walk to the toilet. My logic being I needed to build my strength up, and I knew they’d need me to have had a wee and a poo before I was allowed to leave. They agreed, and one horrible, nausea-inducing yank later and it was gone.

I waited until my antibiotic and fluid bags were empty, then asked to be separated from my drip. Then I slowly swung round, lowered my feet to the floor and stood up, feeling ridiculously light-headed. The nurse helped me to the toilet, and brought me a towel and change of hospital gown. Nick had brought me in some shampoo and body wash. I locked the door behind me, hoping I wouldn’t keel over and have to pull the cord while naked on the floor covered in suds.

I don’t know how long it took. A long time. It was challenging keeping the canula in my hand dry, washing my hair and holding onto the wall so I didn’t fall over, all at the same time. But I did it.

Feeling clean, and not being attached to anything that was either dripping fluid into me, or catching fluid that came out, was liberating.

I walked very slowly and woozily back to the ward, and my bed, and sat down. I was as knackered as if I’d run to the shops. But I felt better than I did an hour before.

Soon I was reconnected, and the drugs were seeping back into me again; the antibiotics, the morphine and codeine, the anti-nausea tablets. I lay back and took it all.

The ward was busy again, a Groundhog Day repeat of the day before. I was getting used to the routine of it, but it didn’t mean I wanted to stay. I was still hoping for escape.

And I got it.

Later in the day the doctor told me he’d had a discussion with his colleague, the one who had very firmly told me I was staying put. And they had come up with a compromise. I could go home to sleep, but I had to come back every day for my drips, for the next week, so that I finished the strong course of antibiotics and continued with my rehydration. I also had to have my blood tested every day, and more scans, so I would be in hospital for hours at a time, BUT I could go home to sleep.

It took hours to be formally released back into the wild, and it was early evening by the time Nick was holding me up, and guiding me out the building.

At home, Nick helped me upstairs to bed, which in itself took time as I felt weak and lightheaded simply climbing the stairs. My bed felt like a princess bed. It felt like something Royalty would command. It was clean, and big, and had my pillow. We all love our own bed, but our own pillow is something extra special. I changed into my pyjamas and climbed in, taking care not to knock the cannula still attached to my hand.

I was home.

It’s been five weeks since that night, and my life is still not ‘back to normal’, as I thought it would. Nick’s life stopped for the first few weeks of the new year too, as he drove me into hospital every day, and then every other day, until I was officially discharged. He sat outside the unit where I was being tested, scanned, attached to drips and waiting for discussions with a doctor – for hours and hours at a time. He drove me home, made everyone dinner, listened to them all talk about their day, then put me to bed. And then did it all again the next day. And the next.

You don’t think about the impact being poorly has on the person who has to look after you, when you are so used to looking after yourself. But Nick’s 2025 didn’t get started until a few days ago, when I was finally stable enough to be left alone in the house all day, without the fear of me keeling over.

I laughed at something he said yesterday, and we both looked at each other, shocked at the realisation that it was the first time I’d belly laughed for weeks.

He said it was nice to have me back, because I’d been irritable and mean while I was sick. I took a breath and swallowed the words I wanted to say, which were hurt, angry and sweary.

I didn’t say them, because being married means pretending to find the other person funny and interesting when you’ve heard it all a thousand times before, because they are a decent human being, and it’s a small price to pay to have them in your life. And sometimes being very poorly means you aren’t able to pretend for a while, so he probably had a point.

It also means you’re allowed to say you found the other person’s behaviour irritable and mean when you were trying to be kind and helpful to them.

So I said sorry for being mean and irritable when I was poorly, even though I didn’t mean it.

And he said it was ok, even though he didn’t mean it either, because that’s what being married is.

It’s now February, and I’m still not well enough to handle normal stuff like getting up and rushing out the door to do the jobs I’d been booked to do, because every part of that process would end with me falling down, or at the very least sitting on a tube station floor feeling very unwell and embarrassed at the stares. I’m still having ‘funny turns’ while out for a walk, or attempting the mildest of exercise.

It means I haven’t really started 2025 yet.

I’ve been looking at all the stuff on Instagram and here on Substack about resolutions, and fresh starts and goals, and manifesting, and absolutely none of it has anything to do with me.

But weirdly, I don’t feel panicky that I am being left behind, and that everyone has started this year’s race without me.

I told the people who needed to know that the things I had scheduled to do with them in January were going to have to be moved, because I have been seriously ill. And all of them said OK. Just like that.

Life stopped for a while, but that’s all. I’m not better yet, but I will be, and I can’t make that happen any faster than the time it will take.

I’m guessing that’s the lesson in this whole shitty experience, if there is a lesson. That things will happen that are out of your control, and will take as long as they need to take.

Maybe there isn’t a ‘learning’, and this is just a thing that happened, that has also happened to thousands of other people, and I’ll suck it up like we do and carry on. One day this will just be a funny story to tell.

One thing hasn’t changed out of all this though…

I still bloody hate January.