Saturday 7 May 2011

Of mice and men

Palm fronds against the roof of the greenhouse
Well, the best laid plans can go awry, and on Thursday I was driven home in an ambulance! The activity I did that day plus the ongoing attempts at weight loss all led to what the lovely paramedics recorded as a 'vaso-vagal episode' - I fainted on the way home after donating blood. Big style, passed right out on the pavement. A guy who saw me go down came over to check I was OK, then he insisted on going back to the blood donor centre and hauling out a couple of nurses. They tried to get me back to the centre, but every time I sat up all the blood drained away and I had to lie down again, so eventually the ambulance was called.

On the plus side, I've never been inside an ambulance before. The two paramedics wheeled me in on a trolley, and I now know I'm not diabetic (blood sugar was 6.1 mmol/l), ECG was normal, but blood pressure was obviously low - the first measurement was 107/68, but it rose to 111/71 when I started to feel better (I have no idea what my 'normal' blood pressure is). Because they didn't have any other calls and I didn't live far away, they even took me home.

I felt well again pretty soon, but with bruises coming up nicely on both elbows, which clearly hit the ground before the rest of me. I couldn't go on to play at the new badminton club, though, so I spent the evening trying on clothes for the conference. I appear to have dropped one size, which is nice, but makes my smartest clothes look a little bit baggy. Then I had a go at some of the lovely clothes that I bought at one point in my life when I might have been described as thin, and it was clear that I haven't dropped two sizes. Not too far off, though.

3 comments:

Tuesday Kid said...

Sucks when something bad happens when you try to do something good.

Anonymous said...

Poor you- hope you're OK now

Lola said...

I'm fine now, thank goodness. I won't be repeating that experience, though.