Angel Delight

They nearly killed me again.

They didn't mean to of course. They just didn't expect my blood pressure to drop so low. And nor did I really. I was in for an arthroscopy on my knee. Piers had been in a good mood prior to the op, and had explained the process of what they were about to do in sufficient medical detail to satisfy my medical curiosity. It was only after the op, when I realised that he wasn't to be seen for love nor money that it dawned on me that his good mood might have been due to a jolly weekend looming.....

So there I was, coming round from a general anaesthetic, feeling isolated, and gutted that I wasn't able to have a full breakdown of everything that they had done to me, with uncontrollable tears streamed down my face. "Are you all right?" Asked the nurse. "Yes fine", I said. I don't know why I'm crying. "Anaesthetics sometimes affect people like that." She said.

And it was after that that it happened.

I started slipping slowly into a land of furry indefinite lines and bright lights beckoning - and no-one realised very quickly, because nobody had been given any reason to supsect that this might happen.

I must have been looking particularly grey however as my friendly student nurse passed my bed.

"I think we'll take your blood pressure again." She said.

It was sixty eight over thrity six, which apparently is a bit on the low side, even for someone like me who habitually has low blood pressure....

She called over her senior colleague.

"It's that machine." I heard her say. "You're not feeling particularly faint are you Sally?" I lay back on the bed, feeling so faint that I was unable to answer. They took the blood pressure again and then decided to call for a doctor....

Of couse, it wasn't nearly as bad as the last time that the medical profession tried to kill me. Nearly seventeen years ago.. That time, in for a minor op, I had asked for an epidural so that I could return to my then nine month old not feeling too groggy from the anaesthetic....

This it seems was possibly a bad choice on my part.

The anaesthetist wanted to get home for his supper , and um... wasn't too keen shall we say, on doing an epidural...

As such, on completion of the op, he sort of forgot to tell the nurses in recovery to lay the bed flat again, instead of tilted up at the foot end, as it had been in theatre.

So... when the epidural started creeping slowly back up the spinal cord and caught my lungs, it did get a little tricky to breathe. That wouldn't hve been so bad, but for the fact that without the use of my lungs I wasn't able to speak either. This of course was a little bit of a problem in attacting the attention of those that could at that split second save my life.

I found that I could wave my arm, and fortunately, just before I slipped away forever I managed to attract the attention of someone medical, who tipped up the bed and gave me some oxygen.

Quite quickly.

Clever stuff this medical business...

Meanwhile... back to last Friday

There was a light on the horizon to my blood pressure incident.....

A doctor arrived.

An angel in disguise clearly.

She explained everything that had been done to me, showed me the piccies of my knee and made me feel completely happy again. The blood pressure righted itself thankfully, and I no longer felt neglected.

I had been saved by an angel.

Post Script.........
A sad irony in today's news.