I Have been to the Royal Chelsea Hospital!

 

Blogging and gaming have been on hold due to a sudden influx of real life events, most of which were really good. But it did include a detour into an unexpected location in the form of the A&E at Royal Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

My wife and I were in the southern UK for 3 1/2 weeks until very recently.  It was very much a family based vacation, seeing relatives, going through my dad's effects and catching up with our daughter.  All good stuff until the very last moment.  We started and ended with stops in London for a few days after arriving and departing via Heathrow.  On our very last day we were out on a walk through Kensington Gardens en route to Notting Hill Gate.  We made it to the history section of the Waterstones before my wheels fell off.  

I suddenly came on very dizzy and week, but it was a heatwave and we'd been out walking so I did the standard grab a chair and a drink of water and let things settle.  Only they didn't and I got a very nasty bit of Vertigo - room spinning, unable to walk and then was violently sick.  If you are in that particular book shop and it smells a bit off then blame me.

The bookstore staff were very helpful, ushering me not their staff washroom, calling an ambulance and staying onsite late until they got there.  The ambulance crew were incredible (as were all of the NHS folks I met) but gave me a real scare.  I was thinking heat stroke or food reactions, but they quickly went to stroke.  Nothing like that particular S word to shake you up, even if you are clinging to the floor and toilet unable to move a muscle without throwing up.

A night in hospital, a couple of CT scans, multiple IV drips and multiple visits with docs later I got a visit from the neurologist.  He did some checks and threw me around a bit (literally) and decided that it was most likely benign paroxysmal positional vertigo or BPPV and not a stroke (although he didn't absolutely rule that out).  By the time I was done, we'd missed our flight time.  But my wonderful wife had managed to cancel the flights in time to get a credit (we think), book a new room at our hotel and move our kit and caboodles between hotel rooms without a minutes sleep while I was incapacitation by vertigo or sleeping.

Flights were rebooked at considerably higher prices than we originally paid and we made it home two days late and thoroughly exhausted.  My wife tells me we're on a diet of rice and beans once we've eaten down the freezer and any new hobby projects are on hold for now.  But we are home, mostly healthy and had a mostly wonderful trip.  I post about some of the non-HNS related stuff in a while.