Such Fun

I don’t know when I’ll get this posted since I don’t have easy access to the internet at this lodge.  We came down here to Orlando mostly to give a gift to our Harry Potter top fan grand-daughter.   We have learned certain things (or remember thing we had forgotten) one of which is that for two oldsters, with peripheral neuropathies, nagging cardio problems, and surgery “improved” legs, there is an awful lot of walking to do in a theme park.  We walked more in the past few days than we have done since Janet’s cardiologist put a stop to our “power walking” routine a few years ago.  Janet has “Winnie Walker” and I have my cane and we figured we could handle it, and we did—sorta.  She did a lot better than I did (my lower vertebrae began to act up.)

Then grand-daughter became ill.  (Orlando has a whole bunch of new pollens and substances in the air to affect her asthma).  A trip to the “immediate care  folks solved her problem and we were back at Universal Studios yesterday.  We actually had a very nice time, got on the rides we wanted without terrible problem, found a place to eat that was pretty good, and after attending a late Harry Potter adventure, my granddaughter won a free Harry Potter magic wand.  We were on our way back to the car, when, almost to the parking lot, I began to have balance problems.  I found myself walking faster than I wanted to  because I was falling forward, using my cane to prop me up but I couldn't stop, I spotted  a railing that I could grab to support me and moved toward it more quickly than I wanted to.  Two park employees were lounging against it and I shouted “Help me, or get out of the way” so they moved out of the way.  I didn’t make it to the rail (actually the First Aid worker that came to help me about ten minutes later thought that I whacked my head on the rail) but I took a major header and ended up face first on the concrete walkway.

As I tried to get up a nice Italian doctor came by and rather insisted that I lie there on the pavement for a little while.  As he was taking my pulse I notice a lump on the top of my left wrist the size of an egg. (Seriously the size of a whole grade A, large egg) and became aware that my nose was bleeding profusely as a passer-by gave me a whole package of nasal tissues.  I didn’t hurt anywhere in particular, and felt kind of silly lying there but I followed the doctor’s advise. 

A couple of company EMT’s rushed up and took over for the doctor  (and chased the large crowd away who probably thought I was a drunk, we were on the “City Walk, where they have a bunch of saloons and shows, and I had noticed some probable inebriates  in the area already ) I insisted that I would be fine if I could get some help standing up and getting to our car. (I was worried about the family getting home because Janet, since her strokes in Finland, doesn’t drive at night because she is totally devoid of peripheral vision on her right side.)

Finally she agreed to get a wheel chair and get me to my car if I would sign a release that says that she recommended that I go to a hospital and I refused.  I then became aware of how upset Janet and the two grandkids were and decided that “okay, what could it hurt to have an emergency room doctor take another look.  I told the EMT that if she could arrange for my family to get to the hospital, and for all of us to get back to the cars (assuming I wouldn’t be admitted for overnight or something).  She assured me that she would arrange such and the die was cast.  I then realized the my glasses had come off, I was missing a  a hearing aid and an enormous blood clot was hooked on to the back of my upper plate and was choking me..

While I was wiffle-waffing about that, I discovered that Janet had, with usual efficiency arranged to have a friend (who was also time-sharing in Orlando) pick her and the kids up, and found my hearing aid and replaced the lens that has popped out of my glasses.  I think, at that time, that if I had won my argument with EMT that Janet would have over-ruled my decision anyway

To make a long story a little shorter, I got taken to a near bye hospital where I had a good series of X rays, found a container for my upper plate so that I could get the blood clot that was clogging my glottis removed, and finally saw myself in the mirror.  If had had seen my face when I was out on the sidewalk, I would never have argued with the EMT about the hospital.  I have two black eyes, my nose looks like and enlarged version of WC Fields’ and is black from the bridge of my nose to its bulbous end.  I totally bled all all over  two  hospital gowns, and the bed in the emergency room , as well as filling an entire 10’X 14’ plastic basin with bloody tissues, great clots of blood, and assorted other gory bits of stuff.  They had a lot of trouble stopping the bleeding in my nose, threatening, as one point, to insert balloons into my nostrils to inflate and stop the blood. (That sounded REALLY fun.)  I have been given instructions to sleep sitting up; not to blow my nose for two days no matter how stuffy they feel;  to quit taking my 81 mg daily aspirin, vitamin E, or anything else that might thin my blood until we get home and checked out by our Personal Care physician.  The goose egg on my arm turned out not to be a symptom of a broken limb but a massive hematoma that has bled out into an almost complete box of gauze pads.  This morning, after a lousy night’s sleep, I have discovered painful spots that were not noticeable yesterday, including a bruised hip, a knee that didn’t hurt at all until I knelt down pick up something that rolled under a chair.  I have all kinds of contusions on my head, my hands, and the surface of my enlarged nose.   Gee time flies when you’re having fun. 

To top it off, I have a car that is still parked in the handicapped zone of Universal studios.  I now considering going downstairs to swim, just to see, if I go under water, I will start a new bleeding pattern.