My interesting two days
Part one
There are two villages on the Thames at Westminster Bridge. One named St Stephen's the pther St Thomas's. The first is a palace, the second a hospital. The first is inhabited by many thousands of mainly white people speaking one language, the second also has thousands of mainly black speaking hundreds of language One is beautiful the other is utilitarian. One is proud, self-regarding and pompous. The other is not.
As a twenty years long inhabitant of St Stephen's I was teleported in dreamlike circumstances to St Thomas's by two paramedics named Andy and Peter on Tuesday night. I had spent the previous ten minutes admiring the beauty of the lozenges in the ceiling of the Members Dining from the perfect vantage point lying flat on my back on the floor. The kindly Bob Laxton had organised a pillow of folded napkins on which to rest my head. It was reassuring to hear the voice of respected GP Richard Taylor MP describing the sagging left side of my face as a Transient Ischemic Attack.
A few minutes earlier, I had joined Bob, Gordon Prentice and Lindsay Hoyle at our usual table for our evening meal. They were behaving oddly. I said that the loss of the disc with confidential information meant the end of the Identity Card Scheme. Neither understood a word of what I said. I repeated the comment. Not a glimmer of understanding. They talked amongst themselves as though I was not there, and Gordon said mysteriously ' I am going to get Doctor Howard Stoat or someone like that to take a look at him.' He then left. Why?
Undeterred by this irrational behaviour, I crossed the dining room floor and tried to fill a plate with a first course. Bob Laxton pointed out that I was trying to load the plate, not on the top or the bottom but from the side. Then, calamity. I fell leftwards heavily on the floor. The ceilings lozenges are remarkably beautiful and different on the Labour and Tory halves of the room. Drifting into my field of vision between the two halves was the face of Lord Darzai. The previous day he had saved the life of Lord Brennan by using the Lords defibrillator on him. A first aid man fitted me with an oxygen mask and there was banter because Lord Darzi is a surgeon not a first aid specialist. I was reassured to notice he did not have his scalpels with him. Doctor Richard Taylor was explaining to the assembled group that I had written a book he liked very much.. Vaguely I fretted. Does he too think I'm not here. Shouldn't he have been doing sometime about my face was being attacked by these Ischemias - even if they are transient?
Andy and Peter, wrapped me in a blanket strapped me to a chair and wheeled me past the Strangers Bar towards the ambulance . We passed Keith Hill MP who asked 'Are you all right Paul'. I couldn't get the oxygen mask off quickly enough to answer, 'On balance, probably not.'
This evening, Thursday, I arrived home after being released at 2,30 pm after two and half days at St Thomas's.. They had run out of things to do to me . With possible exception of a pregnancy test they had nothing more on offer. I have been scanned and probed from brain to big toe. My blood pressure had been automatically measured every quarter of an hour and temperature continually. Electrodes were in place on my top body erogenous zones. My heart's thumping had been has been recorded in glorious Technicolor. Most alarming was the ultrasound moving pictures in red and blue (happily mostly red) of the blood swishing and gushing its way from brain to heart along the neck arterial channel. Apparently they can get gunged up and produce clots. I presume then they give them a bit of a de-coke, but I did not ask for details. Like all my other bits, they are OK. Or as OK as there were before. Which is not saying much..
More tomorrow.
Comments