Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

The First Day

Luckily, we left in plenty of time to reach the hospital. Just as well, as it turned out, for when we arrived there were queues of cars on all the roads approaching the main gates.

We joined the queue and fifteen minutes late, crawled through the gates to find road works, traffic cones and red barriers all along the road that lead to the car parks.

This is when Anita began to panic.

She had been relatively calm in the car up until this point, even though I knew she was hating every minute, the closer we got to the hospital. Clearly upset, and probably taking this as a bad omen, she demanded to be taken home. A request we tried to ignore. At our peril, I might add, but the moment seemed to pass, and we were safe.

Finding a place to park was a nightmare and fraught with visions of another meltdown, so when we spotted one, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

Anita was called promptly at her allotted appointment time, and the procedure revealed no clots in her heart whatsoever. A year ago this month, there was a massive clot in her left ventricle and now it had gone! This was such great news, but why was Anita still so breathless?

On returning home we were all completely shattered and turned in early, just to be better equipped for another day at the hospital tomorrow.

Day Two

We left even earlier for the appointment just in case the situation at the hospital had deteriorated even further, and of course, we arrived far too early. We didn’t fancy leaving Anita in Outpatients on her own for longer than necessary. We couldn’t be with her (covid precautions still in operation), so we all sat in the hospital lobby, a very pleasant waiting area and twiddled our thumbs. I mean, what do you talk about on these occasions?

Anita seemed more relaxed today, even though this test was more important and complicated. Yesterdays test was to see her heart working and this one was to check all her arteries using a dye. The possibility of a stent being needed has been mentioned.

This was where todays nightmare began.

They couldn’t they find any veins in Anita’s arms! At this point, I was in the waiting room, (one person allowed today, and only if they didn’t need the chair) and Anita kept appearing in her hospital nightie, waving, as yet another attempt failed! When they finally found one, using some new-fangled machine, we all felt like cheering. Me mainly, because Anita was taking all of this so well and even looked as though she was enjoying it.

This doctor wasn’t as forthcoming as yesterdays, all he said at the end of the procedure was that he had managed to obtain good clear images and they would be sent to the consultant for analysis.

More blooming waiting!