Tantrum Over

I have had my tantrum and am feeling a little bit sheepish now.

Possibly what happened is that the half dozen tablets they fed me before wheeling me out of A&E did the trick, and left me free to express all the panic and anger that had been part of the foggy melee of things going on behind the pain until that point.

Off to the GP this morning, to see what he thinks. Perhaps I'll get some blood thinners and an appointment at the hospital, with a chance to go in prepared. Perhaps I'll get told to go away and wait for the next episode, which is kind of scary, but then it would allow me to self medicate with lifestyle changes and all that.

Already today I've only had one cup of coffee, and two teas, and now I'm keeping count I realise quite how much I resemble a perambulating coffee pot. Sorry Stegbeetle, I am going to have to get used to normal tea before considering going cold turkey on the caffeine front, but yeah, I love Rooibos.

One vague concern is that my Fawlty-esque and near autistic outrage at the world that people kindly confuse with humour will disappear along with the caffeine jitters and that the new, calm me will be about as exciting as a social worker on valium. Time will tell, but if you catch me being drippy or gentle or cooing or in any way doing an impression of the milk-and-water mother on Little House On The Prairie, tie me down and give me intravenous cola, ok? If there's none available, just shoot me.

The CCU (I have to correct that in the other post, but boy was Blogger up the spout yesterday), ahem, the Coronary Care Unit is designed to handle very sick people, to the point that when I got to use the wing lavatory, I found Nurses uniforms hung up in there. They are used to their patients being near comatose and not giving a rats fart about where they are, or who with, let alone wanting to get out of bed.

No radio, no side tables, no proper thick curtains, no attempt to separate male from female, no bell to call the nurse and definitely no getting out of bed. They seem to expect to only get people who are ready to lie there and play vegetable. I mean, that's fine if you're that sick, must be rather handy if you just want to float over the pain, but for a panicked, hyperactive, stroppy and somewhat controlling woman it was like coming face to face with my greatest fear.

My list of essential items to take back with me (if I have to go back) therefore includes at the top:

• peppermints
• fake cigarette
• sudoku book
• writing paper
• good reading book
• a really scary text book - Egan's The Skilled Helper might do it - something to suggest I might know more about basic human psychology and bedside manners than they do.
  
• knitting
• a picnic (maybe apples and a pocket knife - that'd freak the bastards)
  
• 6 long hat pins and
  
• a voodoo effigy of man in white coat.

There would be a pack of cards or a jigsaw on that list, but for the lack of any hard surface to use them on, and a gameboy or personal stereo but for my suspicion that such things would be banned and confiscated for fear of affecting readouts.

I am tempted to throw in the red plastic proboscis kept over from the last Red Nose Day, but hell, I want to be damn sure I'm the only one laughing.