First visit to hospital in my life!

I packed my bags and Trev drove me to Treliske Hospital. We arrived at 11:00pm.

I was taken to a cubical in the Medical Admissions Unit where a nurse filled out endless forms and took my blood pressure, which was extremely painful and took an armful of blood. This is when the doctor arrived VERY quickly. It turned out that my blood pressure was in excess of 250/150. The doctor explained to me that the cuff around my arm had to inflate until my blood flow stopped and as my blood pressure was so high it had to squeeze extremely hard.

I was then put on a drip with drugs to bring down my blood pressure. The nurses had the instruction to take my blood pressure every five minutes! Within thirty minutes my arm was black with bruises.

I also had my eyes checked over and over again. I even had a load of student doctors looking at them. It turned out that my blood pressure had caused damage to the small blood vessels in my eyes.

Later on I was taken for an ultra sound of my kidneys in the hope that the doctors could establish what was going on.

Trev, Anita and Richard came to visit me that afternoon, I greeted them by being sick everywhere! One of my least favorite activities!! At least Anita was there to hold my hair back for me. Dad and Jen were luckier when they had visited!!

It was 24 hours before I was moved out of the medical admissions unit and to my shock and surprise was put in the high dependency unit. I didn't think I was that ill but in hindsight I now realise that with a blood pressure as high as mine I could have had a stroke at any time and I needed constant monitoring.

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