Citrus trees and ambulances

I went to the Formosa nursery earlier in the week to look at their citrus trees.  When I got there the car park was absolutely jam packed and even the on street parking was full.  I decided I didn't want to look at citrus trees that badly and, since I was in the area, went to look at an independent supermarket that I drive past from time to time but have never been in. It has some things that the big supermarkets don't have, but probably isn't interesting enough for a special trip. Our local IGA has many more interesting things.

I was telling Lindsey about this and she suggested that we go out to Avalon yesterday afternoon.  Avalon has an enormous tree selection and would certainly have lots of citrus trees for me to look at. So out we went. It was slightly alarming to see all the cars parked out the front but we drove in to check out the car park (which you can't see from the road) and there was plenty of parking and there weren't too many people wandering around. I came away with a mandarin tree and a blood orange to plant in the new boxes out the front.  I am intending, in the fullness of time, to plant a couple of apple trees on the front lawn. We don't really use the front garden and rather than just scrubby grass I thought we might as well have something productive as well as my rather pretty garden beds.

Jim added a certain level of excitement to the late afternoon by deciding that he couldn't breathe properly. He had had a very brief episode of dizziness and shortness of breath during the morning when the District Nurse was here but it was, as I said, very brief and none of us had paid it much heed. This seemed to be significantly worse, plus he became very pale and slumped and he couldn't talk.

I called an ambulance.

The nearest ambulance station is only 3 or 4 km from here and a first responder turned up very shortly after my call, followed not many minutes later by a proper ambulance with two more ambulance men and a student.  I can't say I was expecting quite so many people or, indeed, vehicles.  I think I was probably expecting a first responder to assess the situation and then to call for reinforcement if necessary.

I have never described our lounge room as particularly small but by the time you have four ambos with all their kit in it, plus Jim and me, it did seem ever so slightly cramped! They ran a whole series of tests and decided that they couldn't find anything significantly wrong. By then his colour had returned and he was talking and sitting up, but he was still quite breathless. So they took him away to the hospital for further investigation and observation.

Not long before 9 pm a nice doctor rang and said that they still couldn't find anything particularly wrong but that they might keep him in overnight just to keep an eye on him. At 10:30 they rang back and said that he reallyreallyreallyreallyREALLY didn't want to stay overnight and there didn't seem to any point in upsetting him for not much gain and sent him home in a taxi. Whereupon he went to bed, and there he stayed until around 8:00 this morning when I took him in a cup of tea.

I think he must be more or less alright this morning. He's a bit subdued but he happily tucked into a proper cooked breakfast and is now getting dressed. I don't know what they decided was wrong with him, if anything. They didn't send a discharge summary home with him. I'll ask his GP to send for one the next time we see her then we might find out what was going on.  Or not, as the case may be. It may just have been one of those things.

I was wondering what Brandy was watching through the window this morning and went to investigate.  I'm not surprised he was paying attention:

One cheeky currawong