Fate?

I don't want to be seen to be exploiting my dad's predicament. But it's dominating huge chunks of my life at the moment. And maybe it might be useful for others...

There seem to be so many threads which have conspired together leading up to my dad's stroke. There are a lot of 'what if's?', guilt, responsibility, and plain administrative muck-ups, which make me feel sometimes that is was fate, unavoidable, inevitable.

Yet there are also a fair few 'thank God for....' feelings sprinkled around.

My dad is a robust Chinese man in his 80s - often mistaken for somebody 20 years younger. He has high blood pressure and cholesterol but wasn't taking any medicine for it. About 6 or more months ago, my dad complained of blurred vision. He usually suffers from migraines anyway so nobody paid much attention. The opticians said he it was cataracts but we sensed that wasn't the real problem.

Then I read somewhere that blurred vision - especially in one eye - could be a sympton of an impending stroke. My heart skipped a little yet at the same time, there was a sense of denial: no, not my dad... But I did mention it to my mum over the phone. So she made him see the doctor... who referred him to an eye specialist.

As this is the NHS, these type of appointments take weeks, if not months, to get scheduled in. The eye specialist confirmed it was not cataracts that were the problem, but not enough blood getting to the eye. A referral for a special scan was needed. There was a three month waiting list.

At the end of June, my dad collapsed on the floor at home. He couldn't move but could still speak. My mum found him and made some phonecalls, unsure what exactly to do. But 20 minutes later, he simply got up himself. The doctor came round to take a look. It was a mini-stroke (Transient Ischaemic Attack). The doctor would hasten the special scan appointment.

My dad was extremely tired and would get dizzy when he went out. A full-on stroke is very likely to follow a mini-stroke so my mum harrassed the hospital for the appointment. The reply was always the same: we would be notified. I ordered my mum to start investigating getting this scan done privately.

Well, we were notified. In a combination of administrative cock-up and late postal services on 10 July at 1.30 pm we received a letter from the hospital saying that our appointment was for... 10 July, 1.30 pm. No, the hospital said, they could not fit us in until the 31st July. The consultant was on holiday.

On the 23rd July, I got the dreaded phonecall. My dad was in hospital having suffered a stroke...