On your marks...

Blimey O Reilly, if I thought I'd hit the day running yesterday, then today I was on the starting blocks for the 100 metre sprint!
I had my day all planned out, a nice easy girly one of toenails to be painted and then off to the Antiques fair and Art show at Cressing Temple. I thought that if I took my 'go faster' trolley, then I could get some exercise by taking a slow walk around as there are plenty of wooden seats around the site for me to collapse on. And all in a vain hope that I'd loose more than this solitary pound before Monday and get stronger by the day for this transplant.

Of course nothing ever goes to plan does it?
My sister was on my door step by 9.30am chewing her nails and my heart sank as I opened the door to her and rightly so. Mother needs help...now.
So a quick oxygen change, finish my drugs and drag on whatever I could all in 5mins flat. Having a lung disease doesn't suit quick exits!

Mother was sitting on her bedroom floor in her night clothes and no teeth in, not knowing whether she was coming or going. I had a sneaky feeling that where she hadn't eaten or drank enough yesterday because she kept falling asleep, that her sugar levels had dropped and so had she.
By the looks of it, she had opened her curtains and come over funny so she had gone to sit down on her bed, which had moved and she had slipped off the bed slowly onto the floor, but all this had happened about 7am and it was now 9.45am.
After trying to get her up and failing miserably, I called in reinforcements in the shape of Julie, who thankfully came immediately and between Julie and I, we got her up, but her legs were like Bambi's and it took quite a few dummy runs to get her to the front room to sit down.
After a quick discussion in the garden between, Julie, Bebe and myself, we decided she needed looking over by a doctor.

Now I know I am getting old when I quote in the 'old days', but it's true.
In the old days you would call your surgery who would give you the doctors name from your surgery who was on call and they would come out.
Now you phone an out of hours centre and you get someone totally random.
I got a grumpy one on the line who said I should have rang 999 first if she had fell after I had explained over and over again that it wasn't an emergency, but she needed a check over as it could be a chest infection or maybe something more sinister.
He was adamant that I should call 999, so that's what I did next.
I called 999 and explained our plight that it wasn't an emergency, but we needed her checked over and the doctor had said to call them.
I was then told that they would get someone from NHS direct to call me. I did get actually get a lot of sense from her and she was very annoyed with the grumpy doctor.
She thought we had two problems, that mother's on going dementia problem was getting worse and but it was probably exaggerated by a chest infection, but although we knew that I should call the grumpy doctor out, mother was in no way entertaining the idea of having a doctor anywhere near her!
In fact mother got very nasty calling me and the nurse on the line an 'inferring cow', and then standing up and marching on the spot as if there was no problem.
I had to make the decision to hold the call to the doctor and see what happens while risking her recovery.
But then if she deteriorates then I would get out the grumpy doctor straight away and face the consequences of either hers or the doctor's wrath and hope that I hadn't killed her in the mean time.
Five visits later and lots of lip biting and hand wringing by me, she has seemed to have turned a corner and hopefully she'll be alright until tomorrow and then we can reevaluate it again then.

Hopefully my family can do the worrying tomorrow as it has scared the pants off of me today and I feel like a wet weekend in Blackpool! Not something I want to repeat again in a hurry, so fingers crossed for tomorrow.
Not sure where this stress figures in the grand plan of looking after myself and keeping myself well?

Lots of love Debbie x