I had been asleep for about one hour when at 12.26 am my daughter’s GALARM blasted through the silence like a demon alarm clock. I dragged myself to the third floor, opened the bathroom door and stepped straight into chaos. She had been sick in the tiniest sink ever invented and naturally it was fully blocked because her entire dinner had decided to stage an encore performance.

I stumbled downstairs like a half-functioning zombie and gathered the essentials, Dettol spray, wipes, a bin bag, sink unblocker and my iconic pink gloves because if I am cleaning vomit at midnight I might as well look committed. Back upstairs I scooped, scrubbed, unblocked, disinfected and dragged the bin bag downstairs to empty the kitchen bin like the unpaid night shift worker I apparently am.

Just when I thought I had survived the worst of it, another GALARM went off around 1 am. I ran upstairs and found her having a non-epileptic seizure. The serious part, she did not come out of it. Not after five minutes, not ten, not fifteen.

Emergency mode activated.

I threw clothes on, called an ambulance and began the frantic emergency tidy that always happens at the worst possible moment, removing the million coats living on the banisters, clearing the stairs of shoes, chargers and other hazards and making the third floor paramedic worthy.

At 1.40 am the paramedics arrived. They climbed to the top floor, checked her and because she was still seizing they carried her downstairs in a hospital chair like royalty escaping a burning castle. I stuffed the hospital bag with anything remotely useful, spare underwear, water, medication, snacks, chargers, her shoes, her coat and anything my panic hands grabbed.

She was blue-lighted to the hospital at 2 am. By 2.10 am we were in resus where she finally began to come out of the seizure. Blood tests, fluids, paracetamol drip, machines beeping aggressively like we had personally offended them.

By 2.30 am we were moved into the corridor which is the NHS after dark VIP lounge. I sat opposite two doors, one to resus and one to X-ray where people were being wheeled in and out like a bus terminal. I genuinely expected someone to announce, Platform 2, CT Scan Express.

My seat was a plastic torture chair pretending to be furniture. The soundtrack was coughs, phlegm gargling, splutters and medieval plague energy from every corner. My knee hurt, my back hurt and my neck cracked like a bowl of Rice Krispies whenever I moved. After almost twenty hours on that same plastic chair my right knee began cracking loudly, my back felt like it had seized into a permanent question mark and my eyes were burning from exhaustion and fluorescent hospital lighting. Honestly, sitting in that chair should count as community service hours.

At 5 am I messaged my ex to tell him she was in hospital. At 5.13 am we were still in the corridor with no doctor in sight and my daughter was freezing, aching and sneezing while I smelled like Dettol and a breakdown waiting to happen.

By 5.45 am I finally used the toilet after holding it in long enough to join Team GB. Since I basically live in this hospital I knew exactly which toilet was the safest one to visit.

At 6 am I tried to think ahead but the day had its own plans. When the ex arrived around 8 am I cancelled my thumb therapy appointment entirely and it was moved to January because attending therapy on zero sleep would have been a comedy sketch.

By 10.30 am I escaped to a quieter walkway, far away from the coughing orchestra of the corridor and ate the famous M&S Egg and Watercress sandwich like it was luxury dining. We eventually saw the doctor who raised concerns and ordered additional tests.

At 11.07 am we were still in the corridor. I had been awake since 12.30 am with one hour of sleep.

Then came the Wee Saga.

An elderly man with several holes in his trousers wandered past looking for the toilet, and before anyone could guide him, he wet himself right in front of me, my ex and my daughter. He continued walking as if nothing had happened and left a shining trail of wee down the corridor like a tragic breadcrumb trail. Nurses walked through it without hesitation. Then a male nurse arrived carrying a bed sheet, placed it over the puddle and wiped it up with his foot, yes, using his actual foot, casually shoe-mopping urine like he was cleaning a kitchen spill. This same nurse was meant to do my daughter’s vitals, but after that performance, he vanished completely.

Eventually I got an Uber home, showered and rested but sleep refused to happen. My brain simply said no. So I ordered another Uber and returned to the hospital to relieve the ex because apparently I had been booked for the full twenty four hour shift.

I made myself a fruit salad with two dates, an apple, blueberries and a banana which felt less like food and more like survival medicine. For reasons I still cannot explain I put eyeliner on, as if I needed to impress the corridor crowd, but my eyes were itching like hell and within minutes I resembled a melting panda.

Still no sleep. Still in A&E.

At 7.05 pm, she had another non-epileptic seizure. 

While she was in her non-epileptic seizure and knowing how long they go on for and knowing the doctor was looking after another 300 patients, and M&S was shutting in 15 mins I asked the nurse if I could go and grab some dinner, which ended up being another M&S sandwich, this time a tuna and sweetcorn with Red Pepper Pitta chips which were delicious and a sneaky Chocolate, Coconut & Date bar, a carb overload that finally woke my body up. By the time I got back, she was still in it. I asked the nurse to tell the doctor, and eventually, after 1.5 hours, they stopped it with medication.

Chaos in the corridor.

At 10.22 pm the final spectacular disaster occurred. A young adult attempted to escape the hospital and began fighting security. He threw equipment, caused chaos, and because we were still trapped in the corridor, he fell directly on my daughter. I had to push him off her; he was very strong, and he injured an elderly woman nearby. I shouted at him to get off and filmed only part of it because it was genuinely terrifying. When security finally restrained him, the corridor looked like a disaster zone, and staff moved us back into resus for safety.

Finally, the doctor came with the update. They were not admitting her. Her additional blood tests would take up to seventy-two hours to come back, there were no available beds anywhere in the entire hospital, and if she stayed, she would be spending the next twenty-four hours in the corridor exactly like the one we had already endured.

After her final drip finished, we got an Uber home.

And that marked the end of twenty-three hours in A&E, a day so chaotic and unbelievable that even Netflix would reject the script for being too unrealistic.