I was admitted to East Surrey hospital in January of 2021 with worsening symptoms of Covid. Over the next week I became critically ill and had to be intubated, ventilated and placed into an induced coma. I was transferred to Guy's & St.Thomas' hospital from East Surrey hospital after a week in ICU where I spent the next three weeks. Unfortunately after being discharged from Guy's & St.Thomas' I developed post ICU PTSD.
One of the elements of my trauma was the loss of ten days in total of my life due to being in a coma, I had absolutely no memories of my time at East Surrey hospital. I completed 14 weeks of trauma counselling in the latter part of 2021 with the fantastic clinical psychologist Dr. Wood at East Surrey hospital but I was still left with a yearning to know what had happened to me during my time in a coma.
I decided at the start of 2022 it might be a good idea to apply for my medial records from my time in ICU at East Surrey hospital but I was initially put off by various medical professionals (this is not a criticism) as they thought it might be too much for me at the time and I might read something I didn't want to know about. I eventually decided to apply for my medical records in September of this year. The application process was very easy and I received two large packets of documents and a CD with various X-ray images back within three weeks of applying. I would like to say a very big THANK YOU to the medical records department at East Surrey hospital for being so efficient and getting my records to me so quickly. I would like also like them to know that now I have read the over one hundred pages of notes I finally know what happened to me during the seven days I was in ICU. This has given me such great relief and has greatly helped me with understanding everything that happened to me. I didn't realise just how many pages of records there would be so again a very big thank you to whoever had to print them all out!! I certainly didn't expect to receive a CD with my X-ray images so that was a nice surprise.
Overall, I would like to just say thank you to the medical records team for helping me to re-discover a part of my life that I thought was gone forever, to lose a number of days of your life is a horrible experience to have to try and cope with but thanks to the records team they are no longer lost!! THANK YOU!!
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