That was a Christmas and Chinese New Year that I want to forget!
Christmas Day (why does America insist on call it a Holiday and not Christmas).
Anyway Christmas evening we had friends round to dinner for a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. I was feeling a bit warm during the day and indulged in a couple of glasses of cold water during the meal. Just after we finished eating I just started shaking and within 30 minutes I ended up on the floor not being able to move my legs very much. The word STROKE was going through my mind. When the ambulance arrived the two small attendants and the nurse were unable to get me up onto a stretcher so two of our complex security men came to assist.
I was whisked off to hospital where I spent the night. They decided that the cold I thought I had was more than that and it was a fever. Overnight they filled me with various drips and my temp dropped back to normal and next day I went home relieved that my 'stroke' was not so.
All was well until just before Chinese New Year when I thought I had another cold. A bowl of Cheerios for breakfast with half a litre of cold milk out of the fridge went down well. That is for about 20 minutes. The next thing I was back on the floor again and I could not get up.
Anyway again the ambulance arrived and I spent the next 24 hours in hospital this time I was throwing up the Cheerios and feeling worse than I ever did before. Going through my head was not Cheerio's it was 'is this Goodbye!' Even my wife fell in with my feeling and was crying all the way to hospital!
Anyway 24 hours later my blood tests, ecg and everything else detected nothing and the fever was reduced to normal and I was sent home after it was explained to me that my habit of taking very cold drinks was the cause. So as ther pessimist that I am the relive was that I had not had a stroke.
And on both occasions not a drop of beer or sprits pased my lips.
However there was one difference this time in so much that when they struggled to get me off the floor onto the ambulance stretcher the person holding my ankles was so fearful of dropping me that he overdid his grip and the ligament and tendon just above my right ankle were torn. The result is now three weeks or more of hobbling around on a walking frame.
So from now on in the Winter months I will do what I am advised and keep off the very cold drinks, especially when the weather has been the coldest here for 60 years.
That is now the third time I was in hospital here and I have nothing but praise for them.
Willy
