I think, maybe because I'm not that medically minded, I would have thought, “Maybe it's a bit small, hopefully it will have grown in two months.” I'm not the sort of person who would be up on the computer sort of working out, “What does a small stomach mean?” So I do think I was given quite a lot of information, when there was a 5, they said there was a 5% chance that it was this.
And in my rational moments I was very sort of controlled about it and didn't think about it, but in my irrational moments and emotional moments I sort of panicked. “What if it is this, you know? A month in hospital with three small children and a tiny baby, and juggling three different schools and my work.” You know, I just, the pressure at times just felt quite a lot.
Did anybody sit down with you before they gave you all this stuff and say, “How much information would you like?”
No, not for one minute. It was given to me in sort of just bits and pieces, you know. No-one actually said, “This is the worst case scenario, you know. This is what - I mean, it's very, very unlikely”. They didn't even really say that until this one leading guy drew me a picture and he said, “With fingers crossed, smile, 95% I think it's going to be fine”.
And at that moment I did feel a slight sense of relief, but until then, you know, I felt I was given a lot of information while you're lying on the bed being scanned. And you feel a bit like, I did feel a bit like, maybe for some people it was right, but for some people it's determining what situation they're in. Maybe with a first baby, even though it would have been completely traumatic you've got a bit more time to kind of digest it and kind of deal with it.
In the situation that I felt I was in, it was kind of, I was more panicking about how on earth would I cope with a small baby in hospital for a month, three other children. It was like the whole situation made my mind slightly run out of control, and just sort of - and the trauma of your baby having to be taken away immediately.
Looking back over it and your other experiences of screening as well, what would you feel is the best way for health professionals to handle giving people information? Have you come across really good examples where you feel, “Yes, that was the way I wish it had always been”?
I felt after that day I wished in the end someone had had time - just one person - like 5 minutes to say, “These are the, this is what might happen, this is what probably won't happen, and this is the probability of it all”, but just in quite a sort of calm way.
Rather than sort of 10 different people all saying bits and pieces, and you're coming away and you can't really... But I did feel that they were incredibly thorough and given their schedules, you know, they fitted me in as an emergency and I saw everyone I needed to see in that one day. |
