No Dolores, not tonight!

We had some miserable weather leading up to my trip back to Brighton in November.  I was so looking forward to my nanny cuddles and kisses. Sadly  neither of my children had managed to get out to see us this year and the time between my journey back in March for my granddaughter Maisie's birthday, through to November for little Kaci's birthday seems like a life time. The washing couldn't be done until the last minute as the solar was so low, and it was on an airer in a bedroom, and the miserable weather was our excuse for eating bad food so it should have been no suprise what happened, really.

It was around 8pm the night before my flight and we were sitting watching rubbish television, as we have such few channels now.  We get Irish channel 4 plus a few oldies like Challenge and Pick.  So our TV life revolves around the Channel 4 comedy 8 out of 10 Cats, Bullseye and Family Fortunes, on which Les Dennis looks about 25!  We watch the odd downloaded series too, it's not all bad. Anyway, I felt that pain, I knew immediately it was Dolores the gallstone(s)  I fidgeted about  and walked around but needed to double up really. This couldn't happen now, I had a  plane to catch in the morning.  I had some strong painkillers prescribed from the hospital so I took one and realised I needed to tell Alan.  "I hate to admit to this now", I began," but I've got a pain!"  He knew immediately what that meant.  The options were to sit tight and see if it passed after a few hours, but risk needing to go to the hospital in the middle of the night for pain relief or go now, hope I could be seen quickly and possibly be back home tucked up in bed by midnight. We decided to do that.

We arrived at a particularly busy 'Urgencias' at the Reina Sofia hospital in Cordoba, but you always hope maybe they'll whizz them through fast. No such luck on this occasion.  We saw a young beautiful female doctor who looked about 18 and was proud to try out her English on us, which was a great help. She asked me all the normal questions... bomit? deearea? She had a good feel about then the ladies rushed in... as they do. They put the doo dah on my finger, checked my blood pressure, then they tried numerous places to get a little blood out of me.  It's usually third time lucky, with a bit of wriggling involved. Eventually the line was in, blood taken out and a pain killer on it's way.  Once the pain killer was in, and it works incredibly quickly, I was sent back out to the waiting area for a while. Next stop was an xray, then await to see the pretty little girl again.  Time was ticking away, and we were getting concerned.  We had to leave home about 7.30 in the morning for me to  catch the train from Cordoba to Malaga then my flight to Gatwick, and it was now around 3am! We sat patiently, now and then checking the phone for the time, and sighing. At last we were called back in to see the young doctor.  She confirmed it was my gallstones, and or gallbladder.  Not to eat fat, or drink alcohol and if I become yellow to go to the hospital in Brighton straight away.  We managed a brisk walk back to the car, and arrived home at 6am.  Alan decided he would have an hour in bed as he thought it was better than nothing, but I was sure I would feel worse so I finished drying my clother by holding them up to the calor gas fire. Alan's alarm soon burst into song and I was still feeing great... full of drugs, so off we went.  With any luck I would sleep  most of the journey and see the family  very soon! 

Sadly he wasn't a doctor at the hospital!