Going in on Blue

I haven't posted for a long time as I had left ventricular failure in August last year. I'm only now able to put finger to keyboard and write proper words. 

My heart event was a whopper. A - one minute you're fine, the next you're collapsed on the floor, gasping at your friend to call an ambulance - type. The pain was excruciating. I was sweating, finding it hard to breathe and phasing in and out of consciousness.

Once I was loaded into the ambulance and hooked up to morphine, the paramedic leaned forward to the driver and said, "Going in on blue”. Despite being at death's door, I couldn't help thinking 'what a great title for a story'. 

As we set off, sirens blaring, hurtling at speed towards the hospital, I began to beg whatever or whoever is in charge to spare my life or to take me to heaven and hold me in her loving arms. At the same time, I was struck by my indomitable writer's spirit. Fancy thinking of titles for books at a time like that?!

Three days after I was discharged, I had another LV failure and went in on blue again. I've since been in hospital six more times and am not out of the woods yet. The good news is that, despite all the emergencies and blood tests and nasty cannulas, I'm pleased to be back to my writing again.

The following is an edited piece from a website written by paramedics to explain the various terminology they use. 

Disclaimer: I've met many junior doctors who have been wonderful, so please don't take the reposting of this humorous paragraph too much to heart if you’re a junior doctor.

Blue Call (unedited)

Once a patient is picked up - if the problem is time critical then we will "blue" the patient into the relevant hospital. We radio ahead so the hospital can be ready for our arrival and we then drive with the blue lights and sirens. The slower you see an ambulance driving on blue lights - then probably the worse the patient's condition is! Some people don't understand this - if you had a patient who'd been shot, their bullet was wedged, just touching the main artery from the heart, you would not want to race at 70 miles an hour over speed bumps, round corners et cetera just to arrive and find the patient now bled to death in the back of the truck. No, you take it very, very slow and steady … and leave it to the junior doctors to kill the patient.

http://www.not-on-my-shift.org/about-working/

As it turned out, I experienced Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, which is a rare failure of the left ventricle and heart block which is an electrical fault, like you get in an old car.

 HUGE SHOUT OUT TO ALL MEDICS AND KEY WORKERS DURING COVID 19

links:

  https://takotsubo.net