Doctors won’t see me (saga continues)

[TheCatsPaws]

Previous posts about severe anxiety, recurrent miscarriages.

Had a D&C on Wednesday. Yesterday had a raging temperature, coloured discharge and general unwell feeling. Rang EPU who said to make an emergency doctors appointment today re possible infection.

Got an emergency appointment today. Stuck in traffic for half an hour because road is covered in snow. Rang GP, stuck on phone for 20 minutes. Got told by a receptionist that “sorry you’re too late, we won’t see you”

I explained I had surgery on Wednesday and the ward thinks I have an infection, and wants me to see a dr today. “Sorry that’s our policy”. After much arguing, I asked if she’ll be personally responsible if I get sepsis to which she just quoted policy at me again.

AIBU to be fuming? I’m going down to the surgery and demanding to see the manager right now.

Hmmm had a good read and my 2 pence worth to the original question is yes you were being unreasonable. The fact is the appointment was missed. That wasn't the surgery's fault.
Glad you were able to be seen in the end but don't have a go at the surgery when you miss your appointment. Yes you got stuck in traffic, yes the weather was bad, neither of which can be blamed on the surgery, they have other appointments booked in. And if you're posting in AIBU then you can't get defensive and annoyed if people think you are!

Glad you're being seen to TheCatsPaws.

Fucking hell some of you are just plain vicious.

Horrendous. Vile.
Hope you are ok OP. Xx

To be fair bluemoonchances this is one of those rare threads where OP has barely been defensive at all, she asked for advice on whether she was unreasonable, she got it from people on both sides of the fence, and for the past 12 pages has responded with almost complete civility and lack of defensiveness! Which is pretty amazing on this forum when people often get defensive for not getting certain responses. Even though I believe/d OP was BU in the OP, I have a lot of respect for her accepting the responses like an adult. Ironically it's been other posters that have got super defensive on her behalf!

Draylon, you can feel about your miscarriages however you wish. I'm not sure how your view that you lost cells not a baby is relevant to the OP's loss. Unless you just wanted to stick the knife in by implying she's now unreasonable for not shrugging her shoulders and going 'oh well' after a horrible traumatic loss?

I'm really glad you're being seen and having treatment, catpaws - hoping it means you feel better soon.

Draylon I don't know why you felt the need to post that, but I feel very sorry for you. Not because of how you feel about your miscarriages - different women feel differently and that's fine - but because of whatever's wrong with you that made you so vicious and lacking in empathy. If you see a thread like this and actively look for ways to hurt the OP and to try and make her feel worse - well, it can't be very nice being you.

draylon what should have happened here is the following:

Op has a surgical management at EPAU.
EPAU give follow up number and information along the lines of ‘if you have the following symptoms call us’
OP has symptoms, calls, EPAU follow up.

What actually happened was that EPAU passed the buck, and sent her to the GP, who is NOT the right person to check if she has retained tissue or any other gynae issues. It’s inevitable that the GP would refer back. GP sent her back to hospital resulting in wasted time all around.

The issue of strain on the NHS is a big one. It’s caused by population increase, and reduction in services which would traditionally have taken some of the less urgent cases (out of hours, minor injuries, walk ins, social care, elderly care.) none of that is the OPs fault. The current government is ideologically bent on running the NHS into the floor, at which point they will asset strip it off to benefit their cronies and introduce US style private insurance. Then we are fucked. So if people don’t want that they need to use the NHS responsibly AND vote for parties which will increase those stripped out services again (particularly social care.)

I’ve had miscarriage and how I felt about it is my own personal private issue. I would never dream of telling someone, especially someone who is still healing physically, that it was a bunch of cells. Everyone reacts differently and everyone’s feelings are valid - but you’d be a colossal arse to dismiss someone else’s feelings or to say that to them. Have a little compassion.

'Op sounds fit and well to me.'

That is hands down one of the most idiotic things I've ever read in ten years on this board.

Haven't RTFT but surely if the OP was unable to make her appointment time due to severe weather, then all the other patients would have experienced the same problem, and would also be running late. Were the staff able to get in?

So surely the surgery has a policy on how to deal with such an event, they can't just cancel everyone's appointments otherwise GP's would be sitting in empty offices.

Chances are LifeBeginsAtGin lateness due to inclement weather falls under the general lateness/appointment policy. As of course, not everyone lives far away or doesn't leave enough time or whatnot. There's probably a higher incidence of lateness during severe weather but it doesn't usually occur often enough or affect enough patients to require a separate policy as all that matters from the GP end is whether people attend or not.

GPs have a lot to do throughout the day (see previous posts) to ensure there's never a moment they're sat with nothing to do even if half of the patients didn't show!

If you google your practice and late policy you can often access a PDF detailing their policy, which is helpful to know for the future.

And you don't cancel an appointment that isn't attended. It's marked down as did not attend. Cancelling it would imply the patient had rang up to cancel. If they didn't and also didn't attend it's a DNA and after a certain number of them many surgeries will strike you from their books and request you find another practice as missed appointments cost the NHS an enormous amount of money.

OP I am glad you have been seen. I have been through this too and I’m so very sorry m. It is an awful thing to happen and you will be exhausted and tearful.

I was going to say that you have to be seen medically no matter what and any doctor would appreciate that. I have had a similar issue and doctors know when something really needs seen that day and when it can wait.

Some of the people posting here sound deranged to be honest and just ignore them. MN at its very worst.

lemon seriously - be quiet now, okay?

Oh and you can most definitely haemorrhage with infected retained products!

It is not people like the OP placing the NHS under strain. It is a chronically sick and aging population which is a WHOLE other thread

Your nurse led minor a and e would have been able to help - the only problem with g.ps and walk in centres is that bloods can't be processed quickly. Even a pharmacist would have been able to screen you for sepsis and done some Obs checks like b.p. So you could have got advice there.
I agree that going back to the ward is ideal. I had something similar and it was all sorted very quickly with the nurse at the g.ps. She prescribed antibiotics and it cleared quickly. Not all suspected infections need bloods doing.

Until you get your mod hat Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow and can ban me from posting wherever you fancy, I reckon I'll keep contributing to whichever thread I find interesting. Thanks all the same

lemon don’t need a mod hat to point out when someone is being cruel, sanctimonius and downright unpleasant to someone with complications after miscarriage.

Thanks all the same!

Again - it’s often the people who are late that the gps need to see. I know when I was suffering from awful pnd like symptoms with a tiny baby I couldn’t get anywhere on time - my mh was awful and I was a right mess. I needed to see a gp so badly despite my baby doing a big nappy just before I finally tried to leave the house and was 20 mins late.

Be compassionate people - the op has had a miscarriage and is feeling unwell. She’s not exactly going to be jumping about punctual and happy is she?!

Of course it’s wrong to miss appointments but something you have to understand the circumstances

Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow if you click the '...' next to a post you can report it to MNHQ who'll delete it if it contravenes the forum rules (for example if it's deliberately nasty or abusive), it's not quite the same as having your own little mod hat but it's the next best thing for someone who wishes to become the thread police but hasn't got the requisite powers. Hope that helps :)

Is this the first time you've missed an appointment?

Long shot but does anyone on this thread know anything about raised CRP?

Was told my bloods showed this which can indicate infection and or inflammation. Reason I ask is because there’s been questions about rheumatoid arthritis before but when they did my bloods two years ago I was “Sero negative” and told I probably didn’t have RA. However I still have symptoms and I know there’s a link between miscarriage and autoimmune disease.

Massive long shot I know, you guys aren’t drs, and I plan on requesting another blood test after this infection is gone to see if it’s still raised.

www.healthline.com/health/c-reactive-protein

Thanks for the link. Was told mine wasn’t “extremely” high but was slightly raised.

Raised CRP is ‘non specific’ which means loads of things can do it- infection, recent surgery, inflammation, long term conditions like rheumatoid and bowel problems.

I wouldn’t get carried away with it being rheumatoid related- remember awful as it is miscarriage is common and often unexplained. If you had recurrent miscarriages then might be worth a rethink?