WIBU discharging myself from hospital

[Carrottopppp]

Sorry if this is long but it's important I tell you every detail to give the full story. Saturday evening I woke from a nap to find myself really sore and swollen in my groin and part of my pubis, overnight it swelled considerably went really red and painful to walk, sit, stand etc, I called OOH gp Sunday morning who got me an urgent appointment at our urgent treatment centre within A&E. App was at 9.30am with an absolutely lovely doctor who left no stone unturned and said I had developed an abscess and it needed draining urgently due to the risk of sepsis and the fact it had literally appeared out of nowhere and had grown 4x4 inches literally overnight. He got me an appointment with emergency surgical ambulatory care for 2.15pm yesterday, I attended the nurse took one look and said "no surgeon on this ward will touch that as it is on your pubis not your groin" she sent me back to urgent care and the doctor I saw that morning took me back to his room had another look then said its definitely a groin abscess but we'll let gynae have a look anyway, he sent me up to the gynae ward, 3 different doctors took a look but it was the most senior surgeon on the ward who said it actually is groin, not his area of expertise and also due to the amount of blood vessels in the area he couldn't touch it, so I waited and he came back and said I had to go back to emergency surgical ambulatory care as its them who deal with these things. So off I went an as soon as I walked in I was met by the same nurse who told me she had spoken to a surgeon up on surgical assessment ward and that they were waiting for me and expecting me and I may be treated as a golden patient I. E doctor has a look at it then books me a time to go back the next day and have it removed so off I went up to the ward.

Now this is where I started losing my rag mentally, met by a nurse on the ward who asks another lady to show me to my bed and she said "ill be with you in a minute" yeah you guessed it, never saw her again. I was shown my bed obs done and that's it never saw anybody again, nobody knew when the doctor was coming to speak to me, nobody could tell me whether or not I could eat or drink by this point I hadn't eaten in 26 hours, Its on my notes that I'm on antibiotics yet nobody asked if I was due any (I was but mine were at home as nobody told me when all this started that I would become an inpatient), I waited hours, I had absolutely no overnight stuff with me, I got frustrated and I went to the nurses station to let them know I'm discharging myself and have someone call me to arrange to go back in when it's convenient. The nurse couldn't even find the doctors number to call and ask permission to sign off the discharge, and with that I left.

So to clarify I'd been in and out of hospital for 12 hours, I was no further forward than knowing I had an abscess, i had 4 doctors, 2 nurses and a receptionist all having a gander at my genitals, I was passed from place to place, I walked in agony the entire length of our hospital 1/2 mile 3 times, nobody could tell me what the hell was happening and all the prodding and poking aggravated the abscess to the point it doubled in size and started spreading down my leg. WIBU, maybe I was but I was frustrated, tired and I hadn't eaten in 28 hours. I'm planning on attending A&E this morning and hopefully try and get somewhere, I'm due back in work tomorrow and need it removing as my job requires me to be on my feet for 8 hours a day and don't want to be walking around in pain.

I don't expect 5 start treatment but I do expect to not just be dumped in a bed with the promise a nurse will be round to speak to me in a minute, to then see her walking out an hour later having finished her shift, I do expect to be communicated with, I thought we were in charge of our own health care making decisions well it seems I do a better job caring for myself at home, I've had more information about what to expect from Google than my local hospital. And actually I was polite while discharging myself, and no I didn't sign any discharge forms as the nurse didn't know the number for the doctor to get them to agree to it, I just got told to hang on for another 1 and a half hours considering before that they had no clue when the doctors were coming around to then a HCA announcing to the whole ward "what bed are you, 12, oh yeah your the groin abscess" yeah I left after that, so much for patient confidentiality.

You're being ridiculous.

You think you know better than all the medical teams whose dealt with you over the years.

You're being a martyr.

Hospitals are huge places. I work in a massive college- 6 different buildings. I don't know all the staff and their areas so you can't expect a&e to know the expertise of all areas of the hospital.

Have some food, pack a bag and go to the bloody hospital. Do as you're told once there. You can't pick and choose and you can't override their processes.

OP instead of answering the toss with people with detailed knowledge of hospital and clinical procedures.... Wherever you are /should be on the surgery list and the logic of whether you should have discharged yourself...

Please get yourself back to hospital with your meds/PJs/wash stuff and something to read/listen to..

Daft to wait further... And all the while your infection isn't cleared and you're running the risk of sepsis... WHICH KILLS...

This is urgent... Your family should be looking after their (grand) children.

Furthermore, this is a good opportunity to explain to your kids that tummy being in hospital is a good thing as the doctors & nurses can make mummy better... (whatever appropriate to their age..)

Oh well if you have googled then what’s the problem! Who needs medical degrees if google tells you the answer

This is one of those threads that just gets more and more frustrating!

@Carrottopppp you are in the right, in that the care wasn't great, but you aren't getting any care now, are you, at home?

Even though I am sympathetic to your crappy treatment, you need to return to the hospital, having eaten, drunk and packed a bag and just get on with it.

[quote Carrottopppp]@doingnothing when I was pregnant with my son I had really bad nausea and I didn't eat or drink for 24 hours I attended urgent care as I had a pounding headache for days that wouldn't budge, I had obs and urine sample taken, blood pressure was sky high, I was severely dehydrated, a very fast heart rate and my ketones were through the roof, doctor warned if I went home I ran the risk of slipping In to a coma during the night, I still went home on the promise I'd attend my gp the next morning and go from there, attended the gp everything still the same so went up to hospital and stayed for 13 hours until blood pressure came down, I'd had fluids and food then left[/quote]
Ohh... l see you have "form" for not taking medical advice and thinking you know best..... even when your responsible for more than your own health....

If you think you'd get better care at home, then please stay there. Sterilise a needle and sort your abscess out yourself.

I am of course "joking" about the needle part....

OP: AIBU?
MN: YABU
OP: No I’m not!

Why did you bother asking, what did you want people to say? “oh my god yeah you’re right, the hospital staff are all lazy and couldn’t care less about you, I’d have walked out too, despite being at risk of sepsis, and yeah I wouldn’t eat or drink when I got home either, that will learn them”

Perhaps a factor in your delay is ridiculous people wasting staffs time, flouncing off when they don't get seen within what they deem an acceptable timescale in the middle of an overworked, understaffed system and then wasting staffs time having to get readmitted. Time which could be instead put towards regular clinical activity.

it seems I do a better job caring for myself at home

Well, no, you can't treat an abscess and potential sepsis at home.

I do hope you've had something to eat and got yourself back to hospital by now.

All I googled was the signs of sepsis just in case, all those hours in hospital and I wasn't told what signs to look out for so I've done it myself, I know I run the risk of waiting days now for my surgery and yes that is my fault I admit that, all I want out if all of this is a doctor to give me a rough idea of when it will be, if its not for a few days then that's fine I can return home and back to work until that day, that is all I am asking for right now, I don't see the point of taking up a hospital bed when someone else is more in need of it, I will happily wait this out at home, home where I feel safe and comfortable, where I'm in control.

And to answer I haven't not had a drink, I've had a drink every 6 hours to take my antibiotics

This is one of those threads that just gets more and more frustrating!

This. Can’t help but wonder if OP is actually making herself worse on purpose, either deliberately or subconsciously, so she can go back to the hospital and act like they’ve treated her badly.

OP, as someone who has had two similar abscesses - for the love of God do the following NOW

-pack a hospital bag with overnight stuff, your anti biotics, something to read, water bottle, snacks etc

• sort childcare for your DC
• call your work and tell them you won’t be in tomorrow and quite possibly not for the next few days
• get back to hospital like now.

You’re being really silly - being an ‘emergency’ case basically means that you need operating on before the listed theatre sessions that operate during the week, but any ‘life or death’ emergency will have to take priority over you and this is most likely what will have happened. The staff will be doing what they can but yours sounds like a complicated case and unfortunately there will be a lot of waiting about.

With my first abscess I went to A&E on Friday morning, was admitted and put on the emergency list, but not actually operated on till the Saturday as the surgeons had a critical emergency come in on the Friday evening. It was hard but it’s how it is.

It’s frustrating and these kind of abscesses are awful (and humiliating) - you have my absolute sympathy there but you are not going to get any better until it’s been excised and drained. You are at real risk of sepsis.

You also need to be aware that they will potentially have to leave the wound open to leave it to heal from the inside and chances are you won’t be able to go to work for a good few days afterwards (though this obviously depends on the individual’s situation). I had to have my wound area cleaned and re-packed daily with surgical packing for a good few weeks after both my abscesses. You need to be realistic about what needs to happen in order for you to recover and heal.

Good luck and go back to hospital!!

@Carrottopppp

All I googled was the signs of sepsis just in case, all those hours in hospital and I wasn't told what signs to look out for so I've done it myself, I know I run the risk of waiting days now for my surgery and yes that is my fault I admit that, all I want out if all of this is a doctor to give me a rough idea of when it will be, if its not for a few days then that's fine I can return home and back to work until that day, that is all I am asking for right now, I don't see the point of taking up a hospital bed when someone else is more in need of it, I will happily wait this out at home, home where I feel safe and comfortable, where I'm in control.

And to answer I haven't not had a drink, I've had a drink every 6 hours to take my antibiotics

@Carrottopppp why don't you try going back up to the ward and see if the bed is still available. If you didn't complete the discharge paperwork then maybe you are still in the system

My husband is working a 12 hour shift at an urgent care centre today. I'm dreading he meets and treats OP. I really hope today is a freak and he gets to stand around or waltz the corridors.

@Carrottopppp no doctor is going to diagnose you down the phone and then give you an appointment in two days time to turn up in hospital, for goodness sake. You are now being ridiculous. They need to see it, assess it, debate it at a clinical meeting, it may not be clear what you have! They cannot treat you if you are not there. You could suddenly deteriorate and you will not be able to get there in time.

Up to you though. The more time at home, the more you are at the back of the queue. It really is your choice, but a very foolish one.

Yes I have form for not wanting my anxiety to go through the roof while I was pregnant, for the panic attacks and crying outburst to take charge because thats what hospitals do to me, there is no worse feeling than losing all my control, my own decision making and being left wondering all day "maybe they'll come see me in the next hour" and you realise as every hour passes nobody is coming to see you, then I have to take matters in to my own hands. I hate hospitals with a passion and it takes a lot to get me in one. Obviously my trust and the way they do things differs massively to everybody elses

all those hours in hospital and I wasn't told what signs to look out for so I've done it myself

they will know if you've got sepsis by doing your obs...heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure. it does seem like you're not going to hospital and not taking care of yourself on purpose to prove some kind of point.

If the staff say you need to be admitted you need to be admitted. You do realise they don’t do this for fun!

If you had stayed in then morning rounds wokld have been done by now and you would be one step closer. Instead your getting further away from getting help.

You won't be on any surgery list if you've discharged yourself.

I did this, after no sleep for 24 hours and no medical attention but it was a complete own goal because I had to go back through my GP and the whole referral process had to be started again. And took far longer than had I just stayed and accepted it was going to be a long slow process.

Does that mean you are still at home OP? It really doesn’t work like that, surgery times can’t be predicted down to the minute. I am sure you would rather wait it out at home - all the other patients waiting on a hospital ward are there because it’s so nice 🙄, not because they need surgery and the timing can be unpredictable so they need to be available, and will need to see both the anaesthetist and surgeon prior to being taken down to theatre - have you done your consent form yet for example? There aren’t scheduled times for this, they come to the ward between operations to do this kind of thing. It might be a shit system, but that’s the system as it stands, and you waiting at home isn’t going to change that today.

having said that i am sympathetic to your situation - i have been in hospital with a septic abscess and it's scary not to know what's going on. but as all other pps have said, you need to pack your things and be back in hospital unless you want to really be in danger. sepsis ideally needs to be treated within the hour, and it can mess with your judgment, plus it doesn't always present the same way (i didn't even feel that unwell, just had a funny feeling and was scared to stay home and lucky because if i'd gone to bed i would have died) so i wouldn't rely on self diagnosing.

@Carrottopppp

I don't expect 5 start treatment but I do expect to not just be dumped in a bed with the promise a nurse will be round to speak to me in a minute, to then see her walking out an hour later having finished her shift, I do expect to be communicated with, I thought we were in charge of our own health care making decisions well it seems I do a better job caring for myself at home, I've had more information about what to expect from Google than my local hospital. And actually I was polite while discharging myself, and no I didn't sign any discharge forms as the nurse didn't know the number for the doctor to get them to agree to it, I just got told to hang on for another 1 and a half hours considering before that they had no clue when the doctors were coming around to then a HCA announcing to the whole ward "what bed are you, 12, oh yeah your the groin abscess" yeah I left after that, so much for patient confidentiality.

Like I said, whiny - and now I’m adding entitled !! So the nurse should have stayed past the end of her shift to speak to you ? You weren’t forgotten, your case would have been handed over to the nurse taking over the shift, and by your own admission, the HCA knew why you were there !! And by the way, if you ‘Google’ you’ll get the ideal set of procedures, but this is real life, not cyberspace. And, no, you don’t do a better job of looking after yourself at home, otherwise you wouldn’t be in this position now would you ? You don’t seem to realise that you were put in that bed so that you were safe and monitored until they could get you sorted out. If something had happened suddenly, you would have been in the right place at the right time - but not now eh ? You’re home, because you know best !!

You need to grow up and stop finding fault. The NHS staff are not bloody clairvoyant so give them the information they need to help you, instead of keeping quiet and then complaining. The system may not be perfect but it’s what we have, so put on your big girl pants and work with it. Get to grips with the fact that you have what is a potentially life threatening condition, pack yourself some PJ’s and a toothbrush and get back there. And resign yourself to the fact that because of your own stupidity and selfishness, this is probably going to take longer than you want. Good luck.

What are you after OP? A response saying 'yes all those nurses, lazy fucks they are, sitting at the nurses station on their arses. Doing shit all. They ignored you hun! That's awful that is! You did the right thing by leaving. That'll show them'

If you get sent to hospital you know you are In for the long haul. Didn't you think to bring some overnight stuff just in case?

And it's not a hotel. You are placed on a bed so they know where you are once they get to you. You may be seen be several nurses but they know who you are and what you are there for but presumably you are down the list in terms of urgency.

I recently went to hospital and put on a ward due to reemergence of life threatening blood clots. I wasn't seen for 6 hours but that's understandable given I was physically and mentally fit and conscious. Clearly the people they were attending to were neither of those and the staff were stretched to breaking point.

Op you clearly have a bit of a fear of hospitals and I get that I really do but nothing I repeat NOTHING is more important than your own health right now you are no good to your husband ,children or work if you die from sepis. I'm sorry to be so blunt but sepis is serious and can happen so quickly. Have something to eat, any meds that you are due,pack some things and get yourself back up there. I'm sorry that you are having such a tough time but the best thing you can do for yourself and your family is to get back there and start to get better.. I hope you get answers and treatment soon xx

Have something to eat. You will only need to be nil by mouth of food for 6 hours, and clear fluids (water, black tea/coffee, fizzy pop, squash etc) for 2 hours before operations under a GA (in my experience anyway).

Ring in sick to work tomorrow.

Pack a bag with essentials and something to keep you occupied. Bank Holiday Monday, you'll probably be waiting a while.

Go back to hospital.

Sounds frustrating from what you've written, but you've cut your nose off to spite your own face.