Venesection 18 May 2018

I've been somewhat hors de combat recently. Here's the story.

Last Wednesday I saw the haematologist who put me forward for another venesection on Friday morning. My first was fine, my second was also no problem. I was half looking forward to this, my third. I don't mind needles. I'm not particularly squeamish about blood. Easy peasy, I thought. What could possibly go wrong..?

After about 25 minutes, they finished taking the last few mils of the 500 ml total and detached the bag. I felt ever-so slightly light-headed... then, with alarming swiftness, a very unpleasant dark sludge seemed to flow over my mind and I fell forwards in my chair, just managing a quick:

'Nurse!'

I don't remember all the details of what happened next. There was an oxygen mask. There were lots of people. A discussion about 'pushing' something called 'atropine'. I was taken to A & E. A saline drip was inserted. My wife had been contacted and arrived at the hospital. She acted as my interpreter because I was mentally confused, apparently, and had lost some of my power of speech. She explained this to me later, somewhat bemused, as you can imagine.

To cut a long story short, I was kept in hospital until the evening and then driven home by my wife. DG.

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Well, I've survived. I'm still a bit groggy, but that's probably having to look up too many new Greek/Latin-based words such as bradycardia, vasovagal syncope, and atropa belladonna (what a quaint name for Deadly Nightshade, Atropos of the Three Fates, styled as a beautiful lady). Atropine has some unpleasant side effects such as hallucinations, mental confusion, dehydration, migraine headaches... but is just what the doctor ordered for a slow heart. My rate had apparently gone down to 32 per minute. I later set the metronome on our piano to 32 pm - it was quite scary; I think I prefer allegro non troppo.


My pentelope production unit has slowed down in a sort of 'parasympathetic response'*. Here is a pentecoda for my war story:

Reports from Front of bloody action

Heavy fire at venesection

Reinforcing dereliction

Belladonna's dread decoction

Centre saved from fell effluxion...

*I learned that blood-letting lowers blood-pressure. This would normally provoke a 'sympathetic response' leading (naturally enough) to a higher pulse rate. My doctors said that for some reason a 'parasympathetic response' was provoked, slowing the pulse-rate.