Here we go again

Three guesses where I spent my Saturday evening? Having a romantic meal? No. Bopping away at the nightclub down the road? No. Being serenaded by Richard Gere on a gondola? No....fat chance! Sorry your three guesses are up. I spent Saturday evening in Accident and Emergency at the local hospital.

Over the last few months, Greg has been having increasing difficulty walking , his feet have puffed up to the size of party balloons over the last few weeks and despite my nagging (his words by the way - mine would be more along the lines of advising) him to go to the doctor, he has shown no sign of doing so. The circulation to his legs is damaged by smoking and the nerve supply in his legs is damaged by diabetes. More and more over the last few weeks, as I had reported, his appetite had gone altogether, his hygiene had completely gone to seed and he had not bothered to dress or do anything. He had been incontinent several times and I had had to clear up the mess.

Yesterday afternoon he tried to get up the stairs to lie down and his legs just crumpled beneath him. He had no strength in his legs whatsoever to stand or even sit on the stairs. He looked akin to a mermaid (or should that be merman?) trying to writhe up the stairs using the top half of his body but dragging the useless bottom half behind him. He barked at me to help him up the stairs, but as I tried to get him to stand, so his legs crumpled beneath him again. Then he tried to crawl on all fours but again his legs would not do the work. After several attempts over a period of half an hour, when I seemed to be getting the blame for his inability to get up the stairs, I could see we were getting nowhere and I said I was going to phone for an ambulance. He begged me not to (he hates hospitals with a passion and is too curmudgeonly to do what he is told by the nurses and doctors) but I was having none of it. So I called an ambulance and he was whisked to the nearest hospital, with me following on behind in the car. After a three-hour wait, during which Greg moaned about the long wait and complained that I had over-reacted and that he could have got up the stairs if only I had supported him a bit more, we finally saw a doctor who did all sorts of tests to evaluate his mobility and reflexes. Then she ordered some blood tests and the long and short of it was that they admitted him overnight to do some more mobility tests in the morning. My sister-in-law commented "thank goodness it wasn't last weekend when you were taking Kay up to university".

Meanwhile the blood results show that his liver values are sky-high. Surprise surprise!