WHAT’S LIFE WITHOUT A BIT OF EXCITEMENT!!!

At the risk of sounding dramatic I actually had a couple of instances which were really scary for me as well as my family around me. I have suffered from migraines since before I got married and when I get an acute one I would have a throbbing headache, puke my guts out and just have to sleep in a dark room. Sometimes I would get cluster headaches which used to last for anything from 2 days to 10 days. My usual painkillers would not work and I would have to have a combination of injections… one painkiller and one diazepam to make me sleep. These would usually do the trick but were used as a last resort. So I’m going back about 18 years ago and it’s strange that I can remember every minutest detail of that day and yet if you ask me what I had for dinner yesterday I’ll be scratching my hair trying to remember! So back to my headache… I’d had this for about a week and my family doctor Dr Bani Patel told me to take my pain meds plus a steroid tablet which he said had helped a number of people. However this had no effect on me so Vinay asked him to come and give me my injections. I remember that my mother was here with us and Neha’s parents came to see me and it was a Sunday so they had brought Iddli/ Dosa batter from Jyoti Vihar for all of us ( I told you I remember the strangest of things!). Meanwhile Doc came and he brought my injections and since he had given me fortwin and it didn’t help he brought voveron as the painkiller and calmpose for sleep. He gave me my shots and told me to sleep and everyone left the room to have lunch. My hands suddenly felt very itchy so I went to wash them in cold water and then I felt a rash on my neck and I realised I was having an allergic reaction so I told my maid to call Vinay. They immediately came and I was going in and out of consciousness. They called Bani who immediately turned his car round and meanwhile told Vinay to give me an anti allergic tablet straight away. I was pointing to my medicine box as I knew I had some in that but in their haste they couldn’t find them so Vivek went rushing to the chemist round the corner. They were also trying to figure out how to get me to the car so they got the office chair which has wheels on it thinking they would wheel me to the car. Meanwhile Doc reaches, looks at me and literally kicks the chair away and grabs me by the shoulders and tells Vinay to pick me up by my legs ( I was much lighter then so not too difficult but I was a dead weight so not easy either!). They bundle me into the car and I remember lying with my head in Vivek’s lap and Bani told him to keep talking to me and not to let me sleep. I still remember that all the way to Woodlands Vivek kept saying “ mum it’s Mother’s Day and I haven’t wished you”. The next thing I know is that I am in the ICU and the room is full of doctors and nurses rushing around. I later found out that on admission my pulse and blood pressure were both zero. So I literally died and came back… scary. Of course many people asked me if I had seen a tunnel with light at the end or had an out of body experience but the answer was no… nothing like that but it was extremely scary even now writing about it brings goosebumps to my full body. I feel even worse for my family who were waiting outside the ICU not knowing what was happening but I do know one thing…Dr Bani Patel saved my life that day with his quick thinking. We later figured out that I must be allergic to a drug called diclofenac which is probably one of the most common painkillers given post surgery and is present in most painkillers. Vivek googled all the medicines containing diclofenac and we removed them from my medicine box. 

Now move on about 10 years and I wake up with a bad back ache so I get my good old medicine box and I’m hunting for Combiflam which I normally take and I find Myospaz which I knew was also an anti inflammatory so am about to take that and then I suddenly remember someone had said Myospaz Forte is more effective and I find that and take that. Tablets obviously take longer to enter the bloodstream but about 45 mins later I told Vinay I was feeling a bit strange and my hands were itchy so he just went to the bathroom saying he’d be back in 5 mins and I tried calling out to my maid only to find that I couldn’t speak. Anyway she somehow understood and went up to Neha who came running down and Vinay came out of the bathroom and we realised I was again having an anaphylactic reaction. Unknowingly I took Myospaz Forte which contains diclofenac as opposed to normal Myospaz which doesn’t. Whilst Vinay was talking to Bani I took an anti histamine and this time I managed to walk to the car and we rushed to Belle Vue. By the time I reached I was having trouble breathing as my airway had gotten swollen but the quick action of the doctors ensured that I was okay. 

I am now so scared of taking diclofenac by mistake that I always check ten times whenever any new medicine is prescribed to me. Also when I recently underwent a surgery I think I must have told anyone and everyone entering my room that I was allergic to this drug and in the operating theatre when the anaesthetist told me to count backwards from 10 all I said was “ I am allergic to diclofenac, I am allergic to diclofenac……!!!

So why am I writing about these extremely macabre incidents in my life? Well one I have to thank my family doctor Dr Bani Patel for literally saving my life twice… without you Doc I wouldn’t be here boring you all to death!!

Another reason is because we have been reading such horrifying news in the papers for the last 5 weeks about the extremely sad and tragic death of the young lady junior doctor whose only wish in life was to qualify as a senior doctor and save lives. It is terrible that it seems there is no end in sight and her death may just be quietly hushed up and forgotten. 

We must ensure that justice is done in her memory. 

Another reason I suddenly remembered my stories was that I just watched two films on Netflix about people who literally die, go to heaven and come back and these were both based on true life accounts. It’s strange how random things suddenly trigger old memories. 

However one thing I have learnt from these two life changing events is to enjoy every moment of every day.