Guardian Angel's Day Off

Well, maybe not a day off, just one where his/her head was turned the other way.

Leaving St M's in a hurry yesterday, busy morning several hold-ups I was hurrying to get to Sainsbury's to do my large weekly shop.

Successfully negotiated cobbles of Pebble Lane turned into the paved square and tripped on an uneven one, fell very fast and very heavily on my knees then 'splatt' on my face.

Blood was pouring from nose and I was somewhat shaken to say the least.  Two wonderful Chinese fellows ran out from their restaurant one phoning for an ambulance the other trying to pick me up.
When they saw the state of me one of them grabbed some napkins or kitchen roll or similar and held it to my face while the other knelt down on the pavement behind me and half pulled up so I was leaning back on him.  Poor little fellow was half my size and he was shaking even more than me.

Ambulance arrived took over and took me to the local hospital.  Arriving at about 12.45 pm.  From there it was a longish wait for Triage who fast-forwarded me (about half an hour) to see a doctor who would assess the damage and recommend treatment.

He was a really nice chap and took great pains to get all the facts right before telling me he thought  rather than deal with it there they would get the plastic surgeon to come and see me.

All this time blood was hardly being stemmed by the succession of pads they gave me.

Finally at 4.30 the Surgeon had a look and told me I had sliced my nose to the bone, cutting the main artery to the nose which was why they couldn't stop the bleeding and he was not sure whether the nose was broken.

The next half hour was about the least pleasant one of my life, injections in my mouth lower and upper lips, in the inner corners of my eyes my cheeks and then worst of all about 8 or more tiny ones in my poor nose,

He then cauterised the artery which slowed and finally stopped the bleeding and then proceeded to stitch my nose from top to bottom washed some of the blood off me, put plaster strips on the nose and said that was it.

I won't pretend I was brave, I wasn't, it hurt, all the time and my hours of holding things to my nose to stem the flood had left my arms weak and shaking.

After the usual questions about my life a lovely nurse persuaded me that now was the time to make use of the offers of help from my neighbours.  Looked one up for me, phoned her, explained the problem and she came and collected me to take me home.

It was then 7.30pm and I had had nothing to eat or drink since my coffee at St M's at 10.30.

The Close grapevine had got to work and someone had put my heating on and two of them brought a batch of tins of soup.  One made tea and the other heated the soup.

I had been told I was not to lie flat but sit propped upright with pillows at night and also not to lean forward or bend down in case the bleeding starts again.  Nor am I allowed to blow my nose, th eone thing I am dying to do.

That's my latest tale of woe, but oh my goodness, is it peppered with wonderful kind caring people.

The angel may have been looking elsewhere, but luckily for me no-one else was.