The NHS do so much good for people every single day of the year, so when I left school way back in 2003 I decided that I wanted to study to become a nurse. The amount of abuse the staff used to get back then was horrendous. Today It has got so bad that 200 assaults are reported every single day. It’s just unacceptable! These people have spent years training so they can help people and this is how they are treated? My personal thank you comes from our most recent experience with the NHS staff. Our son Adam caught a bad cold in January 2017, he seemed to recover quite quickly, until we started to notice a Lump on the side of his neck. The lump would get bigger if he had been exercising and was really noticeable.
We took him to the GP who then referred Adam to NHS Borders ENT. They seemed a little confused by what it actually was. They ruled out cancer so Adam had to go for numerous MRI scans over the next few months to monitor it. The ENT specialist decided to send us to Edinburgh’s Sick Kids Hospital to see one of the ENT Specialists there who immediately said it needed to be removed.By this point it was already well into September and as the surgery would be long and recovery would be even longer we all decided, as long as there was no risk to his immediate health, that the best thing to do would be to wait until after Christmas.
It was a long 3 months and after Christmas we received an appointment for the 16th January 2018, almost a year after this Lump appeared. We had already gathered info on the lump from the MRI scan and it wasn’t Cancer, which was a huge relief.
January 16 2018. The day had arrived to take our oldest son Adam to Edinburgh for his major surgery. We had discussed what could go wrong in the surgery and we were prepared for the worst. His Surgeon told us to expect him to be in surgery for 10 hours maybe more. Adam was nervous, the nurse brought him a sedative to help calm him down but we ended up having to get him into a bed because he fell asleep, that’s the last thing he can remember.We were walked down to theatre by the loveliest nurse who spoke to us and kept us calm because I was thinking all kinds of thoughts and was trying to hold it together.Adam was taken into surgery and Craig and I decided to take a walk, get some fresh air and a bite to eat because it was going to be a long day.
Adam was taken into surgery around 9am and finally came out at 3pm. His surgeon came to talk to us about the surgery and explained that the lump which turned out to be a very rare kind of cyst known as a Thymic Cyst, had wrapped itself around his Carotid artery . Why this mattered the most was when we were offered surgery they gave two options 1) Surgery to remove the cyst or 2) Ultrasound guided aspiration to glue the cyst together . If we had gone for option 2 Adam wouldn’t have made it through the surgery because of the kind of cyst it was, it simply wouldn’t have worked and would have caused him to stop breathing. The surgeon hung around on the ward to make sure Adam wasn’t having any side effects such as a numb tongue or loss of speech.
What really surprised me was how well Adam had recovered from his surgery that he was allowed to go home the next day.He slept for the next few days and then he slowly started getting back on his feet. Adam missed 4 weeks of school, which he hated because he has never missed a day of school since he started when he was 5 years old. Adam has made an almost full recovery now and we have actually just been today (Sat 03 Nov) for his last check up with his surgeon. His MRI scan is clear and he is in perfect health. He still has a long recovery ahead of him even after almost a year as he still feels some pain in the muscle and has physio for that and he has impaired taste buds on one side. I now have a very healthy twelve year old Tween.
I will forever be thankful to the NHS staff who have been involved in his care from the start to the finish. I want to just say how much the staff worked throughout the day and night the literally never stopped and nothing was too much trouble for them. To Mr Sharma and his team at Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital THANK YOU FOR SAVING MY CHILD.
A thank you to every single NHS staff member no matter how big or small you may see your role as being you are all important.
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