Day 9: the 'what if's' again

Dad seemed to have recovered from his nasty fall and pronounced that he'd managed to pass water during the night in the manner we thought safest, i.e. lying on the bed. He was a lot perkier and ever the keen photographer, I gave him his massive, ultra-expensive Canon camera to play with. I left him by himself for literally 2 minutes, and when I got back home and replayed the card, he'd managed to take many many stealth shots of the bay and its patients. It was a little rude - they're sitting ducks and can't exactly move away or take umbridge!

Later, my mum and I saw the consultant in his weekly clinic. The good news was that the bad stroke had happened and so long as dad looked after himself, another one is not expected. His carotid artery on the right side of his neck was completely blocked up. Apparently when one side is 100% blocked, no surgery will be performed. If I understand correctly, the worst has happened and there is no point. If the artery is only partially blocked, say even 90% blocked, then surgery would be performed and probably pretty immediately. Now here comes the crappy part. "So, it's likely that had we been able to catch him earlier, we would have performed surgery and possibly this stroke could have been avoided," said the doc. Oh. I felt guilt wash over me. I should have urged dad to see the GP earlier about his eye trouble. But I had to ask. "How early are we talking about? Weeks? Months?"

The doc shifted a little uncomfortably in his chair. "Humph. Well, if we'd been able to keep the original appointment of 10 July, it's quite likely that the artery would not have been 100% blocked and we would have operated immediately." Pause. "Yes, I'm really quite angry that the notification wasn't sent out in a timely manner." In other words, an administrative cock-up now means my dad can't walk properly and can't use his left arm and has to suffer the indignities of being bossed around by nurses, peeing in his bed, falling over into his own urine....

All kinds of guilty thoughts attacked my brain. The 'what if's?' reared their ugly heads. What if I'd told dad about stroke symptons? What if mum had taken dad to the hospital when he'd had his mini-stroke? What if I'd insisted he have his carotid scan done privately much earlier instead of waiting for the NHS to get its act together? What if the consultant hadn't gone on holiday for 3 weeks? What if they had only sent out their notification first class post instead of crappy second class??!!

Ultimately though, as the doc also pointed out, we can debate the what if's till kingdom come. In the short term it won't help at all and what's happened has happened and we need to concentrate on getting dad better. Besides which, operations to unblock arteries are in themselves risky - clots can be dislodged and cause strokes anyhow.

It still sucks though.