An unexpected twist!

On our way to visit Dulcie last night, as I was walking into the hospital, I could taste blood in my mouth.I thought it was, perhaps, from my gums and did not think any more of it.This morning, even before I opened my eyes, I could tell the room was spinning. I closed my eyes and lay on my stomach and opened my eyes again and focussed upon one spot and the dizziness stopped.I have had labyrinthitis before and it was awful and hoped that it was not recurring. I just do not have time to be ill at the moment.It was only after I got up that I discovered the blood clot in my mouth.I had no idea what it meant but was quite worried.I was no longer feeling dizzy but my head felt heavy and a bit woozy.Will went off to visit his mum and I rang the nearest doctor and made an appointment for 3.30pm.Will's niece Shelley arrived before he came home. She was going to visit Dulcie but was leaving her son, Phoenix here with us while she went.Will arrived home not long after she arrived. Dulcie was much better and was due to be moved back up to rehab that morning. It was good news.Will had not met Phoenix before but it was the third time I had seen him.He cried for a few minutes when he discovered his mum had slipped out unseen but was soon playing with us. He was really good and when Shelley came back he was asleep on the sofa.At 3.15 Will drove me down to Acacia Ridge Shopping Centre and I went to the surgery while he nipped into Woolies.The surgery here seemed nowhere near as interesting or amusing as the one Dulcie goes to but perhaps that was because this time the visit was coloured by the fact that I was the patient...and with some fairly worrying symptoms.There seemed to be a few people before me but I got in a little bit sooner than I should have because the patient before me had gone to the toilet.The doctor was Dr Wang!...(I am not making it up.)I told him what had happened this morning. He looked in my mouth and up my nose and said it all looked good. He took my blood pressure......It was high..... 180 over 100.He was struggling to decide what to do....he did not know me....he had no records on me...he had never seen me before.He said, "I am going to write you a letter. I want you to go to the Emergency Department at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Do you know where it is?"Despite my shock at this unexpected turn of events, I found that question funny."Know where it is? I have only been visiting it twice a day for the last 2 weeks!"Will was waiting in the waiting room when I came out."What did he say?""I have to go to Emergency at Queen Elizabeth."We had to go home first to drop off the shopping and then drove to the hospital. We were both in a bit of a daze.It has rained here all day....in fact it has been the wettest day here since we arrived and actually the wettest day of any other visit  of ours to Australia.It was strange arriving at the hospital. I was now the patient....how could this be happening?The nurse who I handed Dr Wang's letter to and who took my details was one of the lovely nurses who had looked after Dulcie when she had been taken in nearly two weeks ago...I reminded her and she remembered."Oh yes! Nick."I took  seat in the waiting room but had only been sat down about a minute before the 'lovely' nurse called me in.Will said " Do you want me to come?""Yes," I said...but he didn't hear me and stayed seated in the waiting room.The Emergency Department is very new and state of the art. I was lead to a cubicle and lay on the bed. I told her what I had told Dr Wang and she took  my blood pressure again. It was high.She went away and after awhile came back and asked me to follow her. As we passed the waiting room door I asked if Will could come with us. Of course he could so I pressed the green button to open the door between the waiting room and the Emergency Department and he came with us. I was lead to another curtained cubicle, and introduced to another nurse."He is Super Nurse," said the 'lovely' nurse, "you are in good hands," and she left us.Super Nurse asked me to put on a gown and I got on the bed. Again I explained what had happened that morning, the dizziness, the blood clot etc.He took my blood pressure....it was 209 over something. I could see Super Nurse was shocked.He put in a cannula and drew some blood to be tested. I was expecting it to explode out of me but it didn't. He took the samples away.I told Will to go up and visit his Mum as it was nearly tea time. He said he would be back later.Super Nurse came back and fitted me with an ECG, he watched the trace for awhile then hit a print button and left again.I noticed my heart rate was 82 bpm....I wondered if I could slow it down with my mind.I stared at the numbers and breathed slowly and the numbers dropped gradually.....I got it to 72! I was pleased with myself and looked around but no one was there to see. I glanced back at the numbers and they were back in the 80's.My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Danny."How are you?" I asked. He was good but tired and busy still working. He had tried to phone Will to see how his Mum was but could not get through. I told him that Will had said she was much better and that she had been moved back up to rehab."But you'll never guess where I am?" I said....who would have?A doctor came....his handshake was not firm....he was called Frank....I told my story again and all the way through he kept on saying"yes.....right.......yes........right.........right.......yes........yes.......right........"but in that way when people are not really listening to you. He came and went popping back quite a lot to re ask questions about things I had already told him.After awhile he came to say that I was going to have an x ray then left me again. I was lying there about an hour and eventually Will came back."Watch this," I said, " I will lower my heart beat by the power of thought,"I did it again. Will was amazed!Frank came back. They were going to do a brain scan too. Hmmmm, I did not like the sound of that.He was worried about my blood pressure so gave me a tablet to lower it.Super Nurse came back.The porter who took Dulcie up to her ward also arrived with a wheel chair."Can I take Nick for his x-ray?"Super Nurse said something I did not understand."Pardon?" I asked."You are being taken to Shortish Stay."I was unhooked from the ECG."Goodbye machine" I said as I slipped my shoes on.I didn't need the wheel chair. I didn't need the porter. The man who was going to do the scans came for me himself and lead me a back way."You are getting a behind the scenes view," he said.He did a chest x-ray first. He let Will watch."Good news! You have a heart," he said. "now let's see if you have a brain."The CT scanner is like a big metallic doughnut. I had been in one a few years ago when they were looking for stones in my gall bladder but I had never been in one head first.I lay down and they strapped my head down and left the room. The machine whirred and I could see something moving round slowly then fast. I was wondering what it would find and again could not believe that this was happening.The whirring stopped and the door opened."I saw your brain," said the man. Will had seen it too. He said that they had taken 800 photographs of it.I was taken back to the Short Stay ward and lay in bay 8.Daniel the nurse assigned to me said the results of the scan may take an hour or so.Wendi rang Will. She had been to see her Mum and wondered if she could come to see me. Will went to show her the way in."Can you believe this is happening?" I said when she arrived.She did not stay long but it was nice to see her.After waiting a bit longer. Daniel turned from where he was sat at his desk and said,"The results are back. I have seen your scans and they are normal. The doctor will be along soon to see you."I didn't know how worried I had been until he said that. It was such a relief and I nearly cried again. I seem to have been doing a lot of that recently.Frank came. He confirmed what Daniel had told me. He was sending me home with a letter for Dr Wang, who I had to see tomorrow, and a prescription for some blood pressure tablets.I thanked him and shook his limp hand and we walked out into the rain.It was murder getting the ECG tags off my chest....it was the worst part of the day!Don't worry.....I am ok....but it just goes to show.....you just never know what is going to happen next.