Post 20: Geriatric? Bloomin’ cheek
Vital statistics:
Temp: Normal 
BP: 120/81/49 
️
Weight: 73kgs
Hair: Needs cutting
Anything else? What next?
Deep joy — being back at home is great.
I appreciate all that has been done to fix me up so fast. The many hospital staff teams — and my body — deserve huge praise. I’m still in awe of their skills and the application of their tools, and amazed by how a body can start healing so fast with that modern expertise. Bravo. 
But there are two words on my discharge letter I have to take exception to; the rest is honest facts.
Firstly: “Geriatric.”
OMG!
What?!
You’ve gotta be kidding me.
I’m sitting there, ready to go home, waiting for the pharmacy to deliver the blood-thinning syringes, and ping — a notification from Patients Know Best.
“You have a document.”
I open it, click the link — and there it is: an NHS Trust Discharge Letter.
Top right corner, it’s headed:
“Geriatric Medicine Discharge Letter.”
Say whaaaaaat?!
Jerry who??
Well, as you can imagine, I was not amused reading that.
But it immediately got worse.
Directly under my personal details it read:
Diagnosis: Massive bilateral pulmonary embolism (PE) with right heart strain.
Massive!?!?!
No one mentioned massive before.
I only remember hearing I had “two large clots.”
Oh.
Sitting on the bed after reading the rest of the discharge letter then I passed it to My Darling — and then to My Younger Son (who had surprised me in a really nice way by popping over to see his Mammy and take her out for breakfast. The fact that I was being discharged wasn’t even on the cards — this was supposed to be just a I’ll-Dad ward-visit just for a chat.)
Sitting there, deflated and gripped by the reality of my condition, I could only voice two words. I repeated them, over and over in shock:
Geriatric. Massive. Geriatric. Massive.
My Darling put her arm around me and comforted my ego first — and then (the now very worried) Mr U after.
Holy Mackerel! (As Batman used to say to Robin when he was shocked beyond belief.)
I’ve been selfishly moaning and groaning the last couple of days about my “protection issues,” focusing on what I deemed important — and all along I had a very serious health problem that rightly took medical precedence.
I now no longer feel like the fraud I thought I was when entering A&E.
The penny has now dropped. 
The word “massive” makes me feel small.
The clot, Serious — and me, small.
Exaggerating the word “Geriatric” — well, that’s just me being funny, clinging to my ever-youthful feeling of self.
But “massive” — that’s scary.
It’s shaken me up.
I’m so grateful for My Rock, My Darling, her hand, her warmth.
I’m a lucky man in every sense.
The pharmacy pack of home syringes finally arrives, and we go.
With our mouths hidden beneath light blue masks, we say goodbye to the wonderful nurses with grateful, watery, smiling eyes.
Thank you for looking after me. 
Back at the car, I sit soberly in the back seat, thinking about what’s happened over the last three days.
I’m not yet considering consequences — just feeling lucky.
And unlucky.
Mostly lucky.
———————
I wake up a few times during the night — but at least there are no blue curtains around me, nor security guards to navigate, so I’ve had a good rest.
Breakfast, lunch and tea are seamlessly administered by My Darling — and the treat today is a full-fat coronation chickpea sandwich.
The filling is homemade and rather luxurious — definitely fit for a King.
Between eating and drinking, the pills and new syringes of blood thinners are dealt with in a routine fashion.
When push comes to shove, it’s amazing what you can do.
The injections are already just another one of those things I have to do to stay ahead of the reaper.
Talking of Mr Grim — it’s only today, lying in bed contemplating life and its complexities, that the shock really hits me.
The “massive clots” keep playing on my mind.
I imagine they are black and — I don’t know — clotty-shaped.
(What does a clot look like?)
Anyway, I’m starting to add up how it was I got out of hospital so quickly — and I start to get angry.
Angry with everything, everyone.
I need to blow off steam.
But how?
I look back over the facts I was told in the last few days:
• CHAD vascular score up to two.
• Massive PE x 2.
• No strenuous activity for two weeks.
• Blood thinners per day: two.
It’s like the bloody Ark!
But seriously folks — why did no one tell me that the risk of clots was likely?
I’ve had AFib for years, and they took me off rivaroxaban anticoagulant pills three years ago because my CHAD score was zero. (I was on them two years before that — go figure.)
But if I had still been on them before starting chemo, I would likely not have had these massive PEs.
I feel the need to re-evaluate the treatment plan now.
Of course, this will start in two days’ time with an appointment with my oncologist — the first cycle check-up — which should be interesting.
But I also want to speak with the cardiologist who signed me off his care and stopped the anticoagulants.
It’s him I want answers from.
And I’d like to speak to my GP too — after all, he looks after 100% of me.
Consultants only look after bits of me, and obviously haven’t crossed paths over my treatment plan.
Yes, I know it’s too late.
The damage is done.
In fact, I don’t yet know what damage I have to my heart and lungs.
But now I need to know.
It’s my body — and I chose to follow the oncologist’s plan assuming they’d done due diligence.
But now, that’s my job.
They say assumption is the cause of all “mess”-ups (feel free to replace “mess” with any word you like…
).
My assumption — that an expert healthcare professional, but ultimately a stranger to me, had created my treatment plan with all due diligence — was flawed.
Not because the plan necessarily went badly wrong — but because the risk of clots was not clearly flagged to me at the point of agreeing to it.
I know the information leaflet says, and I quote:
“Other important information: Cancer and some cancer treatments can increase the risk of a blood clot.”
But that’s not 100% of my story.
I have AFib, and that already carries a high clot risk.
Surely that means I had a doubled risk?
Doesn’t it?
I’m now rather embarrassed that I didn’t think this through more thoroughly myself.
I’m wobbling today — as you can tell.
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
I’m at the Anger stage — after denying all weekend that anything was wrong.
I’ve pressed the little red button to get off this looping bus.
I need some air.
Can anything stop me ripping up this timetable?
I might just walk back home.
