Day 3 : 8 Men & a City Tour of Denver in an ambulance

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So the holiday has not got off to a great start. I'll spare you all the details but just a couple of hours after arriving at the hotel I spent most of the night in the bathroom with my head down the toilet. I felt just awful. Just getting down to hotel reception was a huge effort to ask for help from the Tour Guide. I felt so awful I was starting to panic if I wasn't well by 630am tomorrow how would I manage on a coach. It's at times like these you want to be tucked up in your own bed with some Heinz Tomato Soup!

The Tour Operator suggested if I was so bad & couldn't make it to a Pharmacy to go to the hospital. By 11am I felt so ill, I just knew I couldn't walk alone to a local Pharmacy, particularly in heat over 100 degrees. I made it down to reception again & they called for an ambulance.

What I wasn't expecting was the number of men who would come to my rescue! 2 Hotel Security men helped me back to my room as I was becoming unstable on my feet by now. 4 ambulance men then arrived to check me out & this was then followed by 2 paramedics! By this point I was getting a bit mortified at the number of people who were getting involved! Plus I looked a complete state & some of them were quite fit! I knew I wasn't going to die but 8 is a bit excessive. I then had the pleasure of being wheeled out on a stretcher & taken to a local hospital to experience the US Health care system. I didn't expect to be doing a city tour this way!

Now I have to say I was quite impressed with the health service. The ambulance arrived in less than 3 minutes of the call & were there before I'd made it back from reception to my hotel room. The hospital was immaculately clean, organised & the most helpful staff - so quite different to my experience in Leeds General 2 years ago! In the examination rooms you got a tv so passed the time away watching The Office & the US version of Loose Women - The Talk.

Now the down sides! Probably the same as over here - the waiting times were long! They have an organised system but just took for hours & you ended up repeating the whole story to 3 different people. I ended up there for 5 hours. The main downsides are the costs of the US Health Care. I had to pay a deposit of around £90 but the final bill will come in about 4 weeks time & could be around £1300 so AA Insurance better not cause me any issues!!! An ambulance ride it's self costs around £500 and an intravenus drips is around £250!!! I know our NHS service isn't perfect but thank god we don't need to fork out these types of costs!! So I look forward to seeing what the final bill looks like!!

5 hours later the Dr advises the blood tests show I have gastroenteritis & could be linked to food poisoning. Now I'm going to put it down to Continental Airways lasagne which at the time I thought tasted awful!! I leave the hospital around 4pm perscription in hand to King Soopers Supermarkets for some drugs. Once back at the hotel it was straight to bed to try & sleep this off. If I can continue to feel better I should be in a place where I can do the coach journey.

So not a great day & didn't really get to see any of Denver. Tomorrow the coach trip officialy starts! Looking at the itinery it's early starts all the way! Most days I have to be packed up by 6.30am & for me that isn't an holiday!!!

Lou's trips always end up having a twist or story but I would never have expected this!! Here's to a better day tomorrow.

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