Day from hell!!

Sitting at home last night, dinner eaten, watching some tv, in uniform, waiting for the pager to go off ...

... Bill gets up to go into the kitchen ...

... BANG!!

... thinking he's dropped something or ... I don't know what ... I call out "Bill??!! ... Bill!!?? Hello??? Bill, what's happened??" .... nothing ... no reply ...

.. I go into the kitchen, expecting to see him jump out from behind the wall to give me a fright. In the darkness I see a figure lying on the ground!! Switched on the light to see Bill lying on the ground, motionless!!!!

"Bill!! Bill!!" I shout to him, shaking him, slapping his face, pulling his eyelids open! A few seconds later (what seemed like forever!!) He starts to stur. "what's going on??" By this stage I'm dialing 111.

"Hi, I'm on WaihiBeach1, I'm on duty for waihi beach and my husband has collapsed"
" Ohhh wow, ok so is he breathing?" came the reply.
"Yes, he's coming too now... ok he's now GCS of 11 or 12 (normal is 15, unconsious is 3).
Bill ... "what's happening?"
Lyn ... "I'm calling the ambulance"
Bill ... "What???!!!, NO!!! I just need to go to bed!! Let me go to bed!!"
Lyn ..."No way!!! With what you just did I'm calling the ambulance and you can't tell me otherwise!!!"
Bill ... "Comon!! Hang up, don't call the ambulance!! I just need bed"

Then next minute he goes unconsious again. Still on the phone to 111 I tell them what's happening. Take his pulse, give them the reading ... normal. Bill comes to again and we go over the same conversation again, him telling me I'm crazy, that no ambulance is coming here.

I choose to ignore him, still on the phone to 111. The guy I was speaking to was awesome. I think he could hear the panic in my voice and chatted to me, making me totally calm and offering to stay on the line with me till the ambulance arrived.

"Hang on! I better tell my partner that she is responding to my house!"

Bill gets up and starts walking to the couch, picking up things along the way, cleaning up, mumbling to himself about having to tidy the house if we have people coming. I tell him off, to lie down on the couch, to which he didn't react very well. He was clearly not impressed that I'd called an ambulance!! Next minute he's unconsious again on the couch! I tell 111. Then he stops breathing!!!! This is when I started to panic. Thoughts running through my head that I may be doing CPR on my husband real soon!!!!!!

Training kicked in and I rolled him on his side (he's not a small boy!!!) and he took a big breath of air! That was the biggest relief I've felt in a very long time!!!!!

The 'other crew' (not my ambulance) turned up and unbeknown to me my 'normal' ambulance partner was on there too. Ohh the relief when I saw her!!! She told me that she threw her uniform on and jumped on board when she heard it was Bill. Hmmm ... that's made me cry right now, didn't effect me till now! Knowing my ambo mates are there for me is a really cool feeling!!!

So in all we had 5 of us in uniform in our tiny lounge and just as well because Bill was very uncooperative, refusing to go to hospital!!! I tell ya! If that had happened to a bloke in the street I would have treated them the same as I did my husband.

My normal partner stepped into bossy, 'don't fuck with me' mode and I love her to bits for that!! Given his antiness at going to hospital and blazay attitude they got him in the ambulance!!! Thank God!!!

This happened 3mths ago and he refused trasport! He's had 2 other episodes this week of near faints in which I've rushed him up to the doctors. He's had two lots of blood tests to try and work out what's going on.

With him on his way to hospital I then sat down to think about the logistics of how I was going to deal with this. I had 4 kids sleeping ... ambulance duty to do tomorrow ... a shop to get open in the morning ... and a sick husband on his way to hospital ... with no one ... I suddenly felt very alone ... no one to call to help!!!

Rang the one friend I could call on here to help with the kids and her phone went to answerphone. 10.55pm was it too late to turn up on her doorstep???

Too bad!! I grabbed the kids in the car and drove to her house. Knocking on the door, her partner answered the knock. "Yes?" "Bill's been taken to hospital, can I get you to look after the kids so I can drive down there??"

silence ....

"Is Sandy there???"
"She's asleep right now!"
(I was getting pissed of about now)
"Can you get her up?? I need someone to look after the kids. I don't know where else to turn!!"
"Well I suppose you could leave them here"
"Great!!" I didn't need a second offer!!!

Tucking four kids in one double bed I explained I'll be back in the morning to pick them up and off I went to Tauranga hospital ... 45mins drive away.

Was trying so hard not to speed. I travel and 'normal' speed plenty of times with very sick patients in the back. Why did I need to speed so much now ... was a very bizarre feeling!!

Got to the hospital and for 4hrs we wait to be seen!!!!!!

Then by 3am I'm thinking I need to be home in bed, I have to open the shop in a few hours so I make the decision to drive home at 3.30am with no sleep. I had to concentrate so hard on the way home. Arrived there ... finally and flopped into bed after setting my alarm for 6.30am ... 2hrs!!

5.30am my mobile rings ... it's Bill ... they're not going to admit him, I have to drive down to Tauranga ... again!!! and pick him up!!!

Get there ... drive home ... arriving 7.03am, open the shop, pick up the kids, get them ready for school, off to school, sleep for 2hrs (in between calls on the mobile by concerned parties), awake at 11am, get ready for ambo (my ambo partner covered me for the first 6hrs after a 24hr shift!!), shower, give Bill a break (yep he's back in the shop after docs say nothing wrong with him!!!! grrr another matter), drive to the station, shift for 6hrs meeting the big CEO of St Johns for a 'chat!' not that I was in the mood for chatting!!! Home at 6pm ...


now I'm buggered!!!! Sometimes life is shit!!! Today is one of those days!!! Don't need anything else in my day!!