When I got home from work on Friday evening, with a bag of chips, I was greeted by a rather concerned Coran complaining of pain and swelling in his left calf and requesting that I take him to hospital to have it checked out. So I rather hastily gobbled down my chips and off we went, both of us wondering what it could be about.
Luckily it wasn't too busy when we got there and we were seen pretty much straight away. It was while Coran spoke to the triage nurse that I realised just how serious things might be, for what he hadn't told me was the fact that for the past two days he had been experiencing what he termed as a 'stitch' in his shoulder muscle and heart palpitations, both of which even with my limited knowledge I knew could be indicators of something far more serious.
Anyway, the nurse evidently agreed, for he ushered us inside where we were seen by an array of Doctors and Nurses. Coran had to endure an ECG, a chest Xray and no less than 4 different blood tests, for which we waited an eternity for results. When they finally came back all was normal except for one blood test which indicated that he may have a blood clot on the lung.
Well, I must admit that this knocked me for six. The thing with Coran is that although he is very much in tune with his body and knows instinctively when something is wrong, very often these are stress reactions. He does have an awful lot of fears about medical procedures in general, and in particular needles and the slightest ache tends to give rise to these fears and make them worse, exaggerating his symptoms. Both of us then thought that this was one of those reactions. When we were told otherwise if felt surreal as if it wasn't happening to us but to someone else.
It seemed to be a mirror of what happened almost exactly two years ago on the night that we went to see Stevie Wonder at the O2 and when we spent the night in Mayday Hospital, Croydon, in that 2 armed Police Officers came in as escorts to a young girl who had taken a drugs overdose. We had to sit and listen through closed curtains while the nurse pumped his girls stomach, and it was not a nice thing to hear. At least this time there were no refugees muttering to themselves in foreign tongues (understand that I am not being racist here, but when you are ill this is not what you want or need to experience).
We were finally discharged just before 1am, with Coran having been given (in the stomach) an injection of blood thinning drugs. We were told that he would have to have these daily until the diagnosis was confirmed following a scan which will hopefully be tomorrow. The department that does these is not open at the weekends and so we will have to wait for them to call us with an appointment tomorrow.
This has really knocked for me six and left me feeling really very low, emotional and tearful. It has brought into sharp focus just how much I do love him and take him for granted as I suppose we all do with our partners. Needless to say I didn't make it to work on Saturday. I made it in today though, despite the tiredness, only to find that I was the only housekeeper on duty (well I suppose Sue was the only one in yesterday due to Corans illness). Somehow though I managed and got most of the work done in time for Coran to meet me (having been given a lift by our neighbour) to go to the hospital, which isn't far from where I work for his injection. They did say that he could do them himself if he wanted, but not surprisingly he didn't feel able to, and I can't say I blame him. We both just hope and pray that he doesn't have a clot and this is a false alarm, but if it does prove to be true, well we will have to cope with it the best we can.
All in all then not the best weekend.
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