So the day started as normal, rather slowly. It is St George’s Day today and I was considering what would be a particularly English meal to have this evening. However all of that was about to change as following a phone call from our local GPs surgery, they advised Colin that he should go straight to hospital as the symptoms he has been suffering to do with his bad back could potentially be signs of a serious complication. I do not think they are as he has had them before but as I have absolutely no medical training it was not a difficult decision that we had to travel to Charing Cross which (besides St George’s) is the best place in London to go and the hospital where Colin has had a number of scans and seen Consultants.
There was no way we were going to travel on public transport up there (we normally get the bus and train the Hammersmith) so I drove which also solved the issues that Colin wanted to take the car out somewhere just locally to check it still drives OK after over a month of sitting outside of the house.
To cut a long story short and it was over 5 hours that we were there… Colin was tested for Covid19 and I was not allowed in so had to wave him off. This is where I sat for nearly the entire 5 hours in the garden outside the hospital. We managed to keep in contact via text over the hours. He was seen by two consultants, had an MRI scan and eventually was seen by a spinal surgeon/consultant. The upshot is that although he does not have the serious syndrome we had feared - good news, he will have to have the operation that he has managed to put off for nearly ten years - bad news. Apparently it is far too dangerous for him to have the operation now as the stats for men of his age going in for operations is very bad in terms of survival as most catch Covid19 after being ventilated during the operation and do not survive.
I clapped for the NHS with complete strangers in a street where I had parked illegally in the residents parking zone working on the assumption that the cars would not be checked by ticket inspectors and I was right.
By the time we got home it was nearly 9.00pm and I did not feel like logging into my photo club Zoom session and we were pretty shattered and hungry. Beans and tomatoes on toast for dinner and two cups of tea!
18,738 dead in the UK (up 616) (figures corrected upwards by government by 22)
