Peter, continued*
Peter’s been increasingly tired lately, Thursday was alarming, and Friday when hellhounds and I turned up after morning hurtle he was not making sense. I got him to the doctor—why can’t I be a black belt ninja something when I need to handle an almost-dead weight that is half again as much as I weigh—who said Peter had a high fever but couldn’t find any obvious reason for it. He scratched his head for a while and sent us home with major antibiotics, saying, if Peter’s not ‘significantly’ better by the next day (today) he should go into hospital. I picked up the out-of-office-hours doc phone number on our way out. I got him settled and promptly rang the family cavalry. I’ve got one daughter and a large substantial grandson here and bless them. I would so not be coping on my own. Never mind the lifting, I’m so busy not freaking out that my brain is not working too well. It was the grandson who suggested drinking straws, for example. Duh.
Peter is significantly better today, although I’m not sure it’s significant enough. I’ve rung the out-of-office doc a couple of times** and I’m going to try to get someone round tomorrow*** to evaluate. The last place you want to be when you’re ill is hospital, if you can help it, and I want to keep him here. But I also want to make sure I’m not missing anything. † I’m also going to need home help.†† The ME is wiping the floor with me, and daughter and grandson have to go home tomorrow.
* * *
* This afternoon some time Peter roused himself suddenly to say, Are you blogging about me? Only that you’re ill, I said. I posted a couple of sentences last night. It’s okay with me if you want to, he said, and fell asleep again.
** Okay, gods damn it, I’m going to put in a word here about a national health service. The last bloody thing you need to be worrying about in the middle of a health crisis is HAVING A DOCTOR AVAILABLE. THE LAST THING. Yes, we’re above the poverty line, so we would never have been at home alone throwing up in a bucket. But the principle remains even for those of us with working bank balances. THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO BE THINKING ABOUT IS MONEY. If you want to get fancy later and go private and pay for it, fine. But in the immediate emergency you want to ring up the surgery and scream HEEEELP and you want them to say, bring him over.^ When you ring up the out-of-office service you just want someone there on the other end. I was an unmarried self employed woman in America before Obama and I’m here to say the lack of a national health service sucked about the biggest time there is to suck. Obama for sainthood. I just hope he hasn’t wrecked his career over it.
^ I should have said ‘I can’t', but in fact I could, and all’s well that ends well.
*** Yes! Home visits! They exist!
† Aside from the drinking straws.
†† The NHS will cover this too, but I admit I’m not looking forward to getting entangled with that bit of the bureaucracy. But the bottom line is still that national health care exists.
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