Welcome to the Unpacking: Ten Days That Changed Me

By Antonia at Unremarkable Me

I recently spent ten days in hospital. Ten days where I wasn’t just unwell—I was dismissed, disoriented, and, at times, outright endangered. And while I’m home now, resting (or attempting to), this story isn’t over. In fact, it’s only just begun.

Because there’s a lot to unpack here. Too much for a single post. Too important to skim over.

So, starting today, I’m breaking it down—one part at a time. Each chapter will tell a piece of the puzzle:

• The Night Before It All Began

• The Pain, the Poke, and the “Perception Problem”

• No Thank You

• The Gaslight Grand Final

This isn’t just a diary of discomfort. It’s an exposé. A case file. A breakdown of a system that claims to care—and sometimes does—but can also deeply, dangerously fail people like me.

Each entry will be part story, part analysis, and part sarcastic side-eye. Because if there’s one thing chronic illness teaches you, it’s that survival comes with commentary. And if I’m going to tell this story, I’m going to tell it in my voice—wry, wounded, and wide awake.

So buckle up. Or lie flat with a neck brace—your call.

I’m Home. And I Have Thoughts. Oh, Do I Have Thoughts.

It’s funny, in the bleakest kind of way, how quickly you stop being a person and start becoming a problem. One moment, you’re explaining your neck pain feels like someone’s pumping pressure into your skull; the next, you’re being spoken about in the third person, as if you’d quietly expired somewhere between the corridor and the CT scan.

Those ten days were filled with tests, confusion, dismissals, and one particularly memorable incident involving multiple lumbar puncture attempts. But more than anything, they were filled with silence—the kind of silence that screams when you’re not being listened to.

I’ve written before about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Chiari Malformation, and the chaos of chronic illness. But this time, something shifted. This time, I realised I wasn’t just going through a bad experience—I was collecting evidence.

And I’m not just going to write about it. I’m going to use it.

Because Unremarkable Me was never just a blog. It’s a bullhorn. A lighthouse. A raised eyebrow with perfect eyeliner.

And if the system wants to keep pretending people like me don’t exist until we’re in crisis? Then I guess it’s time to start shouting louder.

Act One: The Night Before – When the Body Says “No More”

In the days leading up to my hospital admission, something wasn’t right. I’d been getting what I call my “funny turns”—a term that sounds far too quaint for what they really are.

They sneak up on me: sudden waves of light-headedness, heart rate spiking, and then that dreadful warm-water sensation, like something’s bursting and spilling down my neck, through my chest, into my arms. It’s like a panic attack and a stroke had a baby—and that baby is an emotional and neurological chaos gremlin.

And no matter how tough I think I am (and believe me, I’m a stubborn little biscuit), these episodes terrify me. Every. Single. Time.

That night, I felt nauseous and told Sam I was going to get ready for bed. I was sitting on the edge of the mattress, trying to settle myself, when boom. A sensation like a small water balloon bursting at the base of my skull. The warm flush spread across my body—and then, seizure number one.

Sam leapt into action. We’ve been here before. He supported me as best he could. It lasted seven or eight minutes, and by the time I came back to the room—nearly 45 minutes later—I felt like I’d been thrown out of a window, dragged through the garden, and deposited back into my own bed by something with zero bedside manner.

My head was pounding. My neck felt like it had been wrenched by some invisible force. So we stripped the pillows from the bed, and I lay completely flat, afraid to move.

That’s when things started to blur.

By morning, I felt worse. That same sinking, dragging warmth pulled at me again—only this time, it wasn’t a funny turn. It was seizure number two. I remember the sensation of being underwater, pulled by a current I couldn’t fight. Something in me knew: don’t let go. That current wanted me, and it wasn’t gentle.

The next thing I remember is the pain. The light. The voices of paramedics as they carried me out on a stretcher. My head and neck were in agony. My eyes refused to open. Every time I tried to sit upright, the pressure in my skull spiked so sharply it felt like my brain was trying to escape through my spine.

The paramedics, bless them, didn’t want to move me. They knew I needed to stay flat. But the nurse in charge of A&E that morning insisted. Made them. I heard it through the fog:“She can’t stay on the stretcher. Get her in the wheelchair.”

They obeyed—but reluctantly.

As they lowered me into the chair, I screamed. The pain was unbearable. One of the paramedics—kind-eyed, gentle—kept apologising as I howled.

“I’m so sorry, Antonia. I’m so sorry.”

Her voice cracked as she said it again. And again. And that, more than anything, broke me—the fact that she knew.

Ten minutes later, as if my body needed to underscore the point: seizure number three struck—this time, while in the wheelchair.

That’s when a junior doctor finally intervened. He moved me into an exam room and let me lie flat. I couldn’t see—I had no hearing aids in. I couldn’t speak. But I could feel the care in his actions. Quiet. Measured. Deliberate.

Unfortunately, not everyone in A&E seemed to understand that patients aren’t furniture to be rotated between bookings.

Another nurse, who clearly thought the emergency department was some kind of twisted restaurant, told me I had to leave the bed.“You can’t stay here,” he said. “Get back in the wheelchair.”

I couldn’t even scream by that point—my brain was already doing it for me.

Are you F@$#ing kidding me?

Just as I was about to unravel entirely, the same junior doctor reappeared and stopped it from going further. He saved me. Again.

That’s the last thing I remember before waking up in a dark room, on a ward, somewhere inside Luton and Dunstable Hospital.

Stay tuned for Part Two tomorrow.Spoiler alert: the gaslighting? It hasn’t even started yet.