About my behaviour in A&E?

[TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl]

So this morning my DD (9) out of nowhere had an anaphylactic shock. I have no idea what from, she has no allergies. But suddenly she was struggling to breathe and came out in hives in about 2 minutes. So I threw her and DS into the car and drove the 2 minutes to the hospital. DH is abroad for work so I am on my own! I parked in a disabled bay because they’re closest to the hospital and this was an emergency.

Went into A&E, there were 2 desks and one of them had a family there - a teenage girl (the patient from what I overheard) and her mum and dad. I went to the other desk and the doctors came out straight away to get DD. I could hear the dad of the other family moaning about the 2 hour waiting time. DD was struggling to breath inbetween cries of pain because of the hives.

Anyway they gave DD medication straight away and she was very quickly stabilised. However they initially wanted to observe her for a few hours - and are now observing her overnight just in case and will be running tests tomorrow to find out what on Earth she’s reacted to as she did/consumed nothing new this morning, or if it’s possibly immune system related. As you can imagine I was absolutely shitting myself whilst also trying to be a calming force for her, and her brother who was upset at his big sister being so unwell.

Anyway once she was stabilised and under observation, they said she needed spare clothes as they’d removed hers in case it was her clothing 🤷‍♀️ I just happened to have some in the car and thought I really needed to go and re park it anyway

anyway this was maybe an hour after turning up and the family I saw on my way in were still waiting. You have to leave A&E via the reception. The teenage girl patient was flicking through her phone and in no obvious distress. The dad looked at me and loudly said “For fucks sake we were before her and she’s leaving before we’re even seen”.

I just saw red and told him to get fucked I thought my daughter was dying before carrying on to the car to shouts of “you can’t speak to me like that”. He was watching me as I moved the car too as the A&E looks out directly into the car park so saw I’d parked in disabled without a blue badge.

Anyway he complained about me and the doctor told me off about using foul language in A&E and parking in disabled bays without a blue badge I said I’m sorry if it’s made their job more difficult but I’m not sorry for what I said. And that the non-disabled spaces are ages away and to me it was an emergency which is why I parked there. But this bloke was kicking off in reception at this point and taking time up so they obviously weren’t thrilled with me.

But IABU to have behaved the way I did?

DD is fine now BTW and happily watching TV in the children’s ward with my mum next to her, I’m in the canteen going silently between abject worry and total mortification!

All of this is spot on!

Because it's men who speak down to females like that, especially when they have an inflated sense of ego as a Doctor.
I've experienced it myself when my son was poorly and some idiot in a bed by him said about how "precious parents wasting resources and spending his fucking tax payer money". I told him to fuck off and immediately the male doctor sided with the other male and bitched at me, ignoring that the guy swore about me and my son first.

Can I just say to @rubadubdubascrubinahottub that your first post so very clearly explained your thoughts about why the man had been angry at having to wait. It very clearly gave an insight to how nobody knows what others are going through. I feel sad that some other posters could not see what you were saying. I am so sorry for your loss.

Thank you for understanding me, it means a lot x

I'm afraid I've put that you were unreasonable - not for insulting the man that had a go at you (I would have absolutely done the same only probably dropping the C bomb )- Now, I'm not one to judge - but the fact that everyone in his family was upstanding/playing on phone and he was in a position to argue about other things than his daughter's health tells me that it probably wasn't a massive emergency. Dobbing on you was petty - BUT you absolutely shouldn't have parked there - even if it meant abandoning your car elsewhere. People with real disabilities in wheelchairs have real emergencies and would struggle to get into A&E and that was unthinking of you.

However, I'm really glad that your daughter is ok. Anaphalaxia is bloody scary. I hope you get to the bottom of it and it doesn't happen again.

Sometimes teens are sat in hospital because they've made an attempt to take their own life. On a horse, the scars you can't see are often the fatal ones. And it's horrible sitting in A and E waiting for CAMHS. Especially as Triage aren't allowed to sign off the call - you have to wait for a Doctor to do it whilst watching your child go through hell. Being kind costs nothing.

You seem desperate for validation you did the right thing. The right thing would be to take another adult with you to park the car, or to drive you as imagine if your child had stopped breathing whilst you were driving?

You also seem to want to conveniently ignore my child who finds walking extremely painful and has a Blue Badge. In your own scenario, not being able to walk quickly enough might mean they don't make it.

People with real disabilities in wheelchairs have real emergencies and would struggle to get into A&E and that was unthinking of you.

I think struggling to breath and at risk of dying as a result of that can be considered to be a real disability and a real emergency at that moment in time. And one that is certainly worthy of using the blue badge spaces. Which I certainly would under the circumstances too. If people don't like that then tough.

You also seem to want to conveniently ignore my child who finds walking extremely painful and has a Blue Badge. In your own scenario, not being able to walk quickly enough might mean they don't make it.

The ops child might not have made it either. Does that matter to you?

You also seem to want to conveniently ignore my child who finds walking extremely painful and has a Blue Badge. In your own scenario, not being able to walk quickly enough might mean they don't make it.

This is hypothetical, your child didn't need emergency treatment that day, so stop the whataboutery. A child unable to breath at that time is disabled.

I'd stop in the same place if my DH, DS, DD,DS etc were in real danger.

@pollymere a person experiencing anaphylaxis should not walk as it can literally kill them. Their body is already under extreme stress and they should be laid flat to help their heart continue to function. Add in the fact a lot of people experiencing anaphylaxis lose consciousness anyway so walking wouldn’t be physically possible at all.

Where would you suggest the OP should have parked?

not everyone who’s disabled is in a wheelchair. I have M.S and I’d class myself as the walking wounded, fatigue, pain, spasms, cognitive impairment etc. I have a blue badge and I am not offended one jot by this scenario, her daughter could have died, sod the disabled bay issue, she moved the bloody car when her daughter was stabilised. I despair at the lack of common sense on here at times. Would you really piss about trying to find a non disabled bay to park in whilst your daughter is literally unable to breathe, get real.

op you did the right thing here, sod the negative responses, you can have my blue badge any time in these circumstances. Just glad all is well now.

Lets not forget that the parking spot could be taken at any stage by another BB user. If you're able to cope with that but not with it being taken by a woman trying to save an actually or possibly dying child, there is somehting very wrong with you that a BB is not related to.

You have no.idea though,my dh,walked into.A&E with a fracture in his lower back ,yes it wasn' t life threatening but he was in a hell.if a lot of pain and.obviously the Op,s daughter needed immediate attention ,but you can,t judge from the very brief description that ,the man or his daughter wasn't in a,lot of pain ,A&E is very stressful it can make people irate and less to.then saying and doing things they wouldn't normally including the Op!

@x2boys wow ok - I'm not really up for a slanging match today.

Granted, I completely omitted to put 'etc' after wheelchair, which as a rule I normally do, because I am fully aware that there are many special needs and disabilities that require blue badges that do not require a wheelchair! However, after my son almost died in a hospital car park in front of my other two younger children, because I couldn't find a parking space and several people who didn't have blue badges had parked in disabled bays and he had to be attended to by a medic in the middle of a car park because I had to stop my car and abandon it and yell out for someone to help me because I was so concerned about my son dying in my car and there was nowhere to park and he is in a wheelchair and I couldn't park up to get the ramp down and get him into A&E sort of negates or at least I hope in part explains the bashing I got previously!

I'm by no means trying to belittle anaphylaxia either of course I didn't want her daughter to die!!!! Hell if it's an emergency abandon your car anywhere including in the ambulance bay - just preserve life. As a First Aider I'm also aware off the difference between 'walking wounded' and someone who cannot breathe. The fact that the young girl was concentrating on her phone suggests that she was well enough to focus! Just saying. Hell, I know just how stressful A&E is, unfortunately I have spent far too much time there and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. In an ideal world, there would by ample parking for everyone, no one would be charged for the privilege, well-paid, smiling nurses would greet you at the door to meet your every need and all ailments would be dealt with in a swift manner. However, life is a bitch!

So, when you rushed your son to hospital would you have parked your car in a disabled space if one had been available, bearing in mind his condition and that there wasn't any other parking spaces available?

The poster here should have told the staff and then moved her car to another space asap.

As a disabled person with a blue badge, I don't think you were BU parking in a disabled space.
Your child couldn't breathe, you thought she was dying... yes it might cause inconvenience, but I think if the bay wasn't there, you'd have abandoned the car wherever you had to to get DD some help.

And as for telling the dickhead to fuck himself, no, also not U.

You had a hard morning and no ones perfect.

Especially not him, sounds like he took the family for a day trip to A&E.

I was rushed in myself last week, a few tuts, but I was too put of breath to give a shitty response.

Yes because we have a blue badge! I was looking for a blue badge space.

If I didn't have a blue badge I would have parked as near to the hospital as I could trying to avoid the ambulance markings and blue badge spacings.

I'm sure you're not the least bit interested, but, as it was, in my particular situation, it was a hospital with barely any free flowing space for traffic (think single file in between the parking bays and little room for manoeuvre, so my first sign of car abandonment for a mobility vehicle (think middle size white van) was well over 100 yards away from A&E. By the time I had pulled onto the grass verge to abandon my car, my son had had another almighty seizure and was going blue and was lifeless in his chair, and I was a complete mess and my two younger children were beside themselves with worry - my 4 year old son helpfully screaming 'he's dead, he's dead' loudly. Other than opening the rear of the car, checking my son's pulse and screaming A LOT to gain the attention of random passers by, I don't remember much until he was stretchered inside by the cavalry! Thank goodness for helpful said passers by who were quick-thinking, kind, compassionate and bloody rapid runners.

TBH I can't say what I'd do in any said emergency, it's always different, but I am always learning, but, I am, due to personal experience, always incredibly mindful of blue badge users. So much so that when I'm with my special needs son and I have my able-bodied son (now much older), or my husband with me and we see someone with a bigger need than ours, we often give up the space because we can push him and can often find another spot now that we can make work for us.

Everyone reacts differently in a crisis situation. Ideally OP would have had someone with her who would have driven her and her daughter to A&E - as anaphylaxis can snuff out life really quickly (less than a minute at it's very worst I'm sad to say). The friend could have driven whilst the mother monitored her daughter and phoned A&E ahead and then dropped OP and her daughter at the entrance of A&E and then parked up the vehicle to take her son in afterwards. Again, now, back in the real world.

I'm just honestly glad that OP's daughter is now fit and well - best possible outcome.
Believe it or not I'm not vying for an argument here.

Mumsnet is about open opinions in a 'safe environment' - kinda wishing I hadn't chosen today to give mine, but I needed you to understand my reasoning. Had that been the same day of my son's emergency - would you have thought any differently? Or is this just the case of one life over another and it's a shame?

Notsoivory, I guarantee that if your kid was dying, you would park in a BB space with or without a badge if that was the quickest way to get help.
Every parent on here would, whether they admit it or not.

Agreed, as I said I'd stop the traffic on the M1, if it meant my child got treatment!

@Notsoivorytower My point is that had there been a disabled space available I would definitely expect you to use it considering the situation you were in, regardless of whether you have a blue badge or not. Absolutely nobody in the right mind would do any differently. Exactly the same applies to the OP, who had a very sick child in her car needing urgent medical attention. Her absolute number 1 priority was her DD, not wasting precious time looking for an appropriate parking space.

It is peak mumsnet OP, where you must mindlessly follow "the rules". I'd have rammed my car into the smoking/fag shelter if it meant I could potentially get my child breathing again, plus "smoking kills" , so they can't say they weren't warned. Nobody in their right mind (can I still say that?) would give a shit about where they parked if they were literally running in to a hospital with a child hardly breathing. Also living 2 minutes from a hospital, would I fuck phone an ambulance and risk the wait time.
Who would even say they'd park further away in this scenario, presumably only those never having been in a life/death situation or those with a few spare kids or something.
Ffs.

YANBU, would have reacted exactly the same

Of course they would and anyone who says otherwise is lying.