A billing office person comes in and asks
for $2000 dollars up front, which I promptly
squeaked a laugh. Later another office person
comes in and says she needs me to contact
my team and everyone I’ve stayed with since
being here and let them know to be aware of
symptoms as I may be contagious. I do this
but wonder why they’d have me in a shared
room with several ancient people already sick
and with likely no immunities. Beyond this,
many things that I thought would be obvious
simply were not paid attention to here. Logic
was flawed and the healthcare system was
awful.
The UK only has four deadly spiders, two
of which aren’t even able to break human
skin, leaving the Black Widow and the False
Recluse. The latter is similar to our Brown
Recluse, a thumbnail sized, brown, woods
spider that can cost you your limb or your
life if unchecked. This was what bit me in the
woods the first few days, and due to all the
other knicks I brushed it off and didn’t even
notice or see the spider. Luckily I have a large
amount of dense leg muscle and so it took
days to eat down to a large bloodstream and
spread, but this is also why I saw no symptoms
for a week. By the time it hit blood it took one
night to spread into my entire leg and one
day to wrap the fluids in and around all of my
muscles.
DAYS 1-6
The nurses have me in a room of sick,
coughing people averaging the age of 90. I
don’t see a single doctor any of these days.
On the 3rd night one of the old men next
to me died in his sleep. I couldn’t help but
feel like I may have been responsible and my
thoughts spiraled out of control in my insane
feverish state. I may or may not have had
anything to do with that but my later thoughts
were how could they allow someone with
my severe condition to share a room with
other sick people, followed by thoughts of
hopelessness and despair that were hard to
fight due to talking to this guy the first few
nights and then having him simply gone from
life. I’m a positive person, but that will mess
with your head.
Let’s get back to the system that was treating
me. It honestly wasn’t even the fault of the
nurses, as the hospital was massive with a
ton of patients, but simply understaffed.
There were only a dozen or so nurses in each
ward overnight. Often times I’d hit my help
button to try to get water, or assistance to
the bathroom and no one would come for
an hour, as they had a mile long building to
cross and other patients lights on for help
along the way. The water tasted metallic. The
food was absolutely awful even if I had an
appetite. I tried to eat healthy and very little
meat aside from eggs and fish and they just
didn’t have that option. Everything was meat
pies, pork plates, and heavy saucy bland