Worse things happen at sea part two...

 

 

So Paul, Kelly and Susan, with me in a portable hospital bed, were kicked off the boat, put into an ambulance and then had a 20 minute white knuckle ride across Jamaica to the hospital. (Interestingly, in Jamaica, other road users don’t move out of the way for ambulances like they do in the UK - even with lights flashing and sirens screaming!)

When we got to the hospital we had to pay a $5,000 deposit, then they set about doing all the required tests.

About 4 hours later, a big, jolly Jamaican doctor came to see me. ‘You know they say LIFE begins at 40?’ he said to me with a smile.

‘Yes?’ I said

‘They lied!’ he laughed ‘PROBLEMS begin at 40!’

‘Actually, there’s nothing seriously wrong with you.’ he said ‘The PET scan is good, your heart is good, blood pressure is excellent. But you’ve had too much sun and you’ve got heat stroke .. too much to drink, you’re badly dehydrated, you’ve got a general mineral deficiency and a particular deficiency of magnesium. You hadn’t had any breakfast .. you drank too much coffee .. and then you decided to do an intense workout! Stupid!’

Susan looked on very disapprovingly!

‘So I can leave?’ I asked

‘You can go back on the boat, but take it easy!’

I was very relieved. I didn’t want to ruin the cruise for everyone and the boat was leaving for Mexico in a couple of hours.

When we got back to the boat, all I wanted to do was lay on the bed on my own. I kept re-running the words of the doctor, but all I could think was, what if he’s made a mistake? I couldn’t believe my body would react in the way it did just because I was dehydrated and had too much sun. I had been dehydrated and had too much sun literally hundreds of times!

 

As I replayed the days events, I felt so grateful that Paul was there. From his Guardian Angel’s training, he knew that if you want an instant response, you say ‘shots fired’ or ‘heart attack!’ What would have happened if I had been on my own I wondered?

The day’s events had taken so much out of me, I really did need to sleep. But as I laid on the bed staring out of the window, I was scared that if I shut my eyes and went to sleep, I might not wake up .. the whole episode had shaken me to the core.

The next morning, I did indeed wake up, and Susan and I met Paul and Kelly for breakfast. The sun was shining through the huge windows at the bow of the ship, it was another beautiful day. I had a cup of coffee and some ham and eggs.
After about 5 minutes I started feeling sick. I got up to go to the toilet and as I walked out, I felt a tingling sensation in my left arm again. Immediately I knew that it was happening again. I rushed back to the table and blurted out ‘It’s happening again, my arm is tingling, my head is starting to swim, we need to get back to ICU quickly.’

The four of us then rushed down about 10 flights to the ICU.

The nurse quickly took my blood pressure and said ‘You’ve got the blood pressure of a teenager, there’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘What is it then?’ I said.

Just then Dr Ramirez came in. ‘You’re back again?’ he said with a smile.

‘It’s happening again!’ I said.

‘No, there’s nothing wrong with you.’

‘There is!’

He was completely unfazed, he had a comforting smile, and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘The only thing we were unsure of was the brain scan, and now we have the results I can tell you that you’re fine. Enjoy your holiday, stop worrying!’
He seemed so sure, that the symptoms somehow stopped dead in their tracks! That was pretty amazing.

But I couldn’t really enjoy the rest of the holiday. For the next two or three days, I still had tingling arms. I was sure some undiagnosed condition was about to pounce!

When I got back to the UK, I had more tests and saw a number of specialists and I have now pieced together the mystery to my satisfaction!

When we were exercising, I was hyperventilating to get more oxygen to try and keep up with Paul. Hyperventilating is something I have done for years when exercising hard, but this time, coupled with being a bit older, a lot less fit, dehydrated and having had too much sun, it created an attack similar to an asthma attack. When I first passed out, they put me on a drip and dumped two bags of saline or whatever it is, immediately into my blood through a cannula. Even after the cannula was removed, I had an itching or tingling in my left arm where it was!

The next day at breakfast, I was sitting in the sun, I was hot, I was drinking coffee again!! And that made me feel sick. Then my body and mind worked together to convince me it was happening again!

I feel sick, tingling in arm, oh my goodness is it happening again? Check body, yes it is, start feeling dizzy, it’s definitely happening again! Quick, panic!

The experience on the boat has had a profound and lasting effect on me. For the first time in my life, I thought I was going to die .. that is a transformative experience! I completely lost any feelings of childish invincibility and moved completely the other way to really seeing the fragility of my life. And of life generally. The philosophical shifts this has made are significant.

But perhaps the most astonishing thing to me, was the scale of ‘deceit’ that my body and mind are capable of. At breakfast the next day, I was absolutely convinced that it was happening again. But it wasn’t. It felt very real. It was just as terrifying as the day before, but my body created the entire experience on its own! Fear will convince us of things that just aren’t true! I remind myself of this often .. just because it FEELS like it, doesn’t mean it is!