Basic Accommodation

As he was going to bed last night, BB announced that he wasn’t feeling great.  I told him to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep and he would feel much better in the morning.  The  words of every mother.  Today was to be his first day back at school after his exams and study leave, which seem to have gone on for ever.

There has been no school today.  He had a terrible night, and was in considerable pain.  I got an appointment with the GP in the morning, thinking he would send us off with a prescription for antibiotics.  Wrong again.   He was not overly happy with him, as things didn’t add up,  so he sent us to A&E at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh to get him checked out.
 
I naively thought that A&E on a Monday afternoon wouldn’t be too busy.   How wrong I was.  It was packed, so much so  I managed to get BB a seat, but I was standing.  There was so much hanging around, then triage, then back to the waiting area, then eventually he was taken – and we were  stuck in a cubicle for hours.  Meanwhile the doctors couldn’t work out what was going on, so  eventually decided to send him to the Western General Hospital to specialists there.   TT left work early and came and joined us in outwait.  However, once we were ensconced I our cubicle, he was left in the waiting area.  He said it got really busy and they asked all non-patients to leave.  He went for a  walk – following eh wellness route around the hospital, eating a sausage roll as he went!!
 
We arrived at the RIE around 1.30pm, and then left just after 9pm heading to the WGH.    At that time of night there was no traffic, so It only took us about half an hour. We were told they were expecting us.  They may have been – but that made no difference.   While at the RIE there was lots of bustle and loads of people = patients, staff, ambulance teams, etc., it was the complete opposite at the WGH, hardly anyone and very quiet, apart from patients being wheeled around in beds.  Same system though, hung around in a much smaller and much quieter waiting area for hours, then triage, then back to the waiting area, then eventually taken to an assessment room, which felt like being trapped in a prison cell.  Eventually a doctor came to see him, and she had no idea what was wrong with him either.  They then decided to admit him.  So at 3am we were asked to leave.  We left a very anxious and unhappy BB, about to get a covid test, before being taken to the ward.  
 
TT and I were shattered – beyond tired.  We walked out of the building and immediately encountered a fox, who was in no way scared of us.  It was getting daylight and as we drove home the orange glow to the east was just beautiful.  It was pretty much daylight when we got in.  We went straight to bed.  Exhausted.  While poor BB was left to the mercies of his first night alone in hospital – with no diagnosis of what is wrong with him. 
 
My blip was going to the bird that flew into the kitchen window this morning (extra of a young long-tail tit), but here is the spartan cubicle in which BB and I spent such a large part of today.