Portugal last week. A bright warm slice of happiness .....inserted between the short dull days of before and after.
It's after now - fading already. Today I spent 8 hours in the RD&E hospital with Robin. The last letter from the nice consultant neurologist who we saw about Robin'a arm and hand weakness said that if he deteriorated at all, he strongly recommended he be admitted to hospital to expedite the investigations - i.e. have an MRI head scan sooner rather than later.
At 8am this morning I rang our GP and she arranged for him to be admitted through Medical Triage - not an emergency - after the nerve tracking tests he was already having at 9.30am. I packed him an overnight bag in case.
In the end after interminable questionnaires and examinations and bloods and tests and waiting for the doctor to come and the MRI unit to ring back we were offered a slot at 5pm. Which meant waiting nearly 4 hours - to Robin's utmost shouted out horror. Better than staying overnight though.
We walked many corridors and many streets in the weak sunshine, had many cups of coffee and a canteen apple pie and custard, played many games of solitaire and visited many loos. And were called a bit early for the scan. Which lasted much longer than I expected and even with headphones on, piping Classic FM, it was incredibly noisy - a cross between a hammer drill and constant gun shots.
Then it was over. And now we may get a result before Christmas which was the whole point really.
In spite of it being a bit of an ordeal all the nurses and doctors and everyone we encountered were absolutely lovely - kind and helpful and incredibly cheerful and all very sweet with Robin. I'm so so grateful for the NHS - they deserve much better.
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