Richard spent last night in hospital.  We'd had a neighbour over for dinner, a neighbour who'd suddenly become a widow when her husband died in bed in the wee hours just over a month ago.  She is coping but needs friends and family support hence the invite to come for dinner and an episode of Midsomer Murder.  At 7:25, after dinner had finished, she was heading outside for a smoke while I entered the living room heading for the tv.  As we were both turned away from Richard neither of us saw him fall.  He'd stood up from the kitchen stool to start on the dishes when he felt dizzy and fainted.   Richard's a big man, not fat but tall and solidly built.  When he fell he made a sound like a muted explosion.  The floor shook.

I turned and he was on his back, unconscious, eyes open but unfocussed, lips white and arms faintly twitching by his side.  After the first moment of disbelief, I grabbed the phone, pulling the books and papers from the stand, and rang the ambulance.

Our poor neighbour was in shock.  She'd just been through a similar episode, calling the ambulance while she tried to rouse her unresponsive husband.  Tragically, he never responded.  He had already died from a massive cardiac event.  She stood in shock and had to be asked several times before she went and got a pillow to put under Richard's head.

That's how quickly it can happen.   One minute you're enjoying a glass of wine and dinner, the next you're on the floor unconscious and trembling. 

The ambos came, two capable and confidence inspiring young people.  (One bright spot, the woman, a horse enthusiast was also enthusiastic about my paintings.  It's rare that someone comes into the house and raves about them, she did.  I was quite chuffed).  But they knew their job and their attitude was great; friendly, professional, even humorous.  Because of Richard's age and the fact that he'd fainted he was off to hospital.  I followed, waiting perhaps half an hour before leaving as I'd had 2 glasses of wine and didn't want to be *done* for DWI. 

All the tests were fine.  Normal everything.  Better than normal but they said he had to stay overnight just in case. 

While we are extremely lucky to have a local hospital and good doctors (the doctor on duty looked like a  nerdy high school student complete with thick framed glasses, an untidy mop of brown hair and thin pale arms) spending hours waiting to be admitted and then more hours waiting to be discharged is not fun.  The friendly but overbright demeanour of the nurses, accustomed as they are to talking to the hearing impaired elderly, the ticking and buzzing of machines, the muted slap of shoes up and down the corridor, the look of patients who won't be going home again, all speak the language of illness.   It is a world apart from the bright daylight world of the healthy.  Last night, one curtain over, a young man gasped in pain.  Have no idea what was wrong with him but every few minutes he breathed agony.  He didn't groan or cry or moan, the pain was all in his breath.  He was removed to another hospital.

In Richard's ward were 3 elderly gentleman.  Richard had gone for xrays.  The man in the bed opposite was asleep, one had zither framed himself outside to visit with friends, and the third, an extremely deaf 84 year old with the largest eyes, sat quietly by himself on a chair.  I was doing a crossword to fill the time.  Suddenly the biggest sheet-ripping fart split the silence.  I wanted to shout Well Done! a la Noel Coward but no one there would've heard.

Richard is home now, sleeping.  He had a crap night, as did I.  The consensus is that Richard's episode had to do with his Parkinson's medication.  It can cause a drop in blood pressure when the patient goes from a sitting to standing position (although, despite numerous tests, they couldn't get his blood pressure to deviate from normal).  It can also cause dizziness.  So we'll see.  He goes to see the doc tomorrow. 

Wellness as a State of Mind

Richard is fine. Couldn't stop touching him the first day, tangible reassurance he was home. How green the grass looked, how blue the sky, how quickly can it change from vivid to bleak. And back again. I can look at death objectively. I know it is the fate of everything. I don't think, in my fine health and middle age, that I am frightened of it (of pain, yes), but when the shadow looms, however faint, on the horizon for someone close to me, I am not so sanguine. I have not lost someone close to me since Mom. I was 24. Her death was not a surprise. It took me six months before I really grieved. I suppose because I believed then, as I do now, that she had only gone somewhere else it wasn't so difficult to cope. Like she'd moved to another continent without phone or mail or carrier pigeon.

Richard is 65. His span of years is inevitably shorter than it was. We work hard at staving off the effects of old age. We walk 5km almost every day, we eat well. He's stopped smoking. There is no reason why death cannot come at the end of a healthy life rather than as the release from a long debilitating sickness. That is why this heart thing, which seems to only have been a reaction to the anaesthetic, was at first so frightening. I saw the long white corridors of hospitals, those sterile death traps of infinite boredom accented by black doors of fear and pain. And me, unable to effect an escape for my beloved. Against science and doctors and beige machines that beep I would be using a pea shooter. Against the edifice of corporate Medicine I would, with my good thoughts and thoughts are things philosophy, be as effectual as a window trapped blow fly. Yet we have won ourselves home and freedom.

It seems to be the mindset of many that reaching a certain age inevitably entails ill health and pill taking and regular doctor visits so that one can find one's place on the medical treadmill the destination of which is a foregone conclusion. I don't believe this has to be true. I know we are thrown fast balls which come out of left field and then we must choose the safest most beneficial route back to wellness but Medicine is such a lucrative field that it profits them for us to be sick and to be made to believe that sickness if inevitable. For instance, there used to be a commercial on television which advertised a cold/flue product for 'the cold you *will* get this winter'. As if because of a change of season it was inevitable that we catch a cold. Thoughts are things. How dare they air a commercial which asserts, from their unassailable position of medical expertise, that we will be sick.

For all the medical advances, the technology, the specialists, the billions of dollars spent on the health of a nation, are we really healthier than before? We eat badly, don't exercise, rely on pills and powders rather than our own common sense and native mammalian intelligence. Then we crawl to the nearest GP confident of the silver fix it pill. It must be frustrating for the GPs treating people with health issues that are soley related to lifestyle. What else can they do but prescribe tablets and place the patient's feet on that damned treadmill?

Hospital

Richard is in hospital. He went in for a routine inguinal hernia operation and is now in CCU for observation. All went well beforehand. At the pre-sx med check his blood pressure was brilliant, his ECG normal. He was a little apprehensive as one would expect but good. I left him at 1pm as the animals needed doing. He was going in for surgery at 5:00. I was to call at 6:30 when he should have been back in his room. At 6:20 Cameron rang. His sx was delayed, he'd just gone in. I was to ring his room at 8:30 instead. At 8 I got a call from Richard's sister. He was in CCU, something about his heart playing up during surgery. Rang the hospital, couldn't get anyone who really knew the details except he was okay and was only being monitored. Cameron rang, he'd managed to speak to a doctor. Richard would be monitored all night, perhaps sent home with a halter heart monitor, if that showed up any anomalies, it was possible he'd have to be fitted with a pacemaker. Rang the hospital again, got Peter on the CCU ward. Yes, he confirmed all that Cameron said plus telling me that Richard's heart had not beat fully for ONE or TWO MINUTES during surgery. It was half beating but the ventricle was not closing - if I've understood correctly. Perhaps it was only a side effect of the surgery and the drugs but if not....

I'm going down this morning, very soon in fact. Having coffee now which I need as I've slept like crap. Talk about a runaway mind. Two a.m. and I'm still running the same loop through my head. Richard is my everything. I've been thinking the past week about how to write about him, how I feel about him, some of the worries I've had, not related to his health, but hadn't because I wasn't ready. I'm not ready now except to say he must be well. He is strong and good and full of love. He does not need this. Besides his good qualities he does have one that is not so good. He is a worrier. Like his mother. Like his eldest son. He is like a terrier with a bone when he worries. He obsesses. During and after the floods in January I was concerned about it. Before it was just one of those idiosyncrasies that he had that could be passed of as nothing serious but his behaviour post-flood was worrisome. Weight melted off him, partly because we were walking more but more because he worried, lost sleep, didn't eat as much. The next big worry was the termites and just when he was getting to accept that would be all right too this has happened and worry will only aggravate his condition. If he has a condition. Please God, let there be no condition.

I try and discipline my mind to think good thoughts, not to make nightmare scenarios but those gloomy goblins creep in regardless. If something happened to him, I would survive. Of course I would but life without him would be bleak. He is my everything. After 30 years of strangers I met my best friend and lover. I've only had him for 25 years. Not nearly long enough.

There are some good aspects about this (and I know I'm anticipating as the whole story is not known). If he does have a *condition* , than it is best to find out now. Steps can be taken to manage or rectify it. Also, this episode might impress upon Richard the fact that time is not indefinite. He is always going to do something fun later, when he has some time. Fishing, exploring, I don't think he would hunt any more, activities that he's talked of are always in the future, 'when I have time'. He makes time for everyone else. If they need something, especially his sons, he drops everything and goes. As he should. But that same care and attention should be lavished on himself. Perhaps having a scare like this, although he was unaware of it at the time, will cause him to reassess his life. Perhaps to my detriment if he insists we move to the suburbs. I don't know. I don't know what the future holds but as long as he's in it physically and mentally healthy I won't complain.

Just got off the phone to him. He's fine. His heart was fine all night. It's still possible they may keep him in hospital another night. Hope not. Still, we'll do what is required.