It wasn’t the fish

Pam experienced a bit of a scare last night.

We’d been for fish and chips to La Pedrera and were relaxing in the bar with some of our neighbours when I started to feel unwell. Before we could leave though, I apparently collapsed, the colour drained from my face which had dropped to one side and my arm was shaking. Pam’s first thought was that I was having a stroke and so asked the people there to call an ambulance.

Before the ambulance arrived, I’d been taken to the toilet and doused with water which brought me round. At that point I had an intense pain in my kidneys which was coming and going for a few minutes. It was most uncomfortable but at least I was back to consciousness.

By the time the ambulance arrived, I felt much better (as you often do) but of course needed to go to hospital just to check things out.

The ambulance man took my blood pressure and blood sugar level both of which were low. In fact my blood pressure was very low – way below normal.

When I got to the Emergency Department at Vega Baja, they gave me an ECG and took a blood sample for analysis. They also put me on a saline drip.

Thankfully, neither the ECG nor the blood test showed any indication of problems so the ladies who attended me concluded that it was simply my low blood pressure that had caused me to collapse.

On Monday, I will go to see Dr Cartegena and see whether he thinks I would benefit from a different form of tablets to regulate my blood pressure. It may be that the Ixia Plus, that has regulated my pressure well, is now more than I need.

As Pam said when we got home, it was so lucky that the incident occurred in the bar and not outside on the way home.

Apart from the fact that I could have fallen on the ground and done some real damage, I was amongst people who acted so well in the situation. I really cannot thank those people enough for their help – they were brilliant.

• Jeff, who I think it was caught me and stopped me from falling to the floor
• José and Darren from La Pedrera for tending to me and organising the ambulance
• Joaquín, who lives down the road from us on Avenida Europa, for very kindly bringing Pamela to the hospital to be with me
• and even the security guard who went down the road in the buggy to direct the ambulance up to the Albergue.

I’m sure I will have missed someone out and I do apologise for that. I am really sorry to have given people a fright and hope that I didn’t spoil anyone’s night too much.

Thank you once again for all your help and finally I must point out that it was definitely not the fish and chips that caused the problem – they were excellent.