Easy As Bleeding After Worming Bonzi.
by: Angharad
part:382zillion.

I lay on the bed trying to breathe, I began to understand how a fish felt out of water, all this air and yet I could hardly breathe. I was gasping and beginning to get frightened. I knew that to panic would make me hyperventilate, and that would make things worse. I tried to pause and breathe deeply, then pause and exhale. It was so hard, my heart was pounding and I felt very afraid; like I was drowning on dry land.

"That's the doorbell," said Simon and he disappeared re-emerging a couple of moments later with a stranger, who I presumed was a doctor.

"Hi, I'm Dr Wainwright, let's have a look at you." He paused and watched me gasping for air. Then he listened to my chest and and heart. "Do you get asthma?"

I shook my head and Simon told him about my two recent hospitalisations following the stabbing.

"Have you unpacked your case?" asked the young doctor and I shook my head. "Good, take it with you, I'm going to readmit you."

I groaned but couldn't answer enough to argue. Simon tried to, but the young man dismissed his arguments.

"Your wife is going to become increasingly ill if she stays here."

"I only just got her home."

"Sorry, but that's too bad. I refuse to accept responsibility for her, can I use your phone?"

He followed Simon out of the room and I heard him say, "Hi, it's Dr Wainwright here, I'm readmitting someone you sent home today, I'll give her a note - yes, severe breathing difficulties. Don't bother sending her home until she's properly better. That's your problem, look I'm just doing my job and keeping people alive is one of them. Send me an ambulance, now, yes it's very urgent. Good, I'll wait here then. Bye."

He came back into the room, "Right, young lady, I'm readmitting you by ambulance. You are not to move a muscle or attempt to talk. I estimate your lungs are half full of fluid, whether we have another bleed, I don't know, it might just be water. You need to be examined somewhere where they can make that differential diagnosis. Do you understand me?"

I nodded and kept gasping. This was so much hard work, no wonder people died from respiratory disease, it was such hard work simply breathing.

Simon looked at me and I felt myself begin to weep, it was silent, I didn't have the energy or breath to cry as well. I just felt, frightened and disappointed. The chances of getting to France were so remote now. Be just my luck for Millar or Cavendish to win the bloody tour now.

I saw the blue lights flickering in the driveway and a couple of minutes later two paramedics appeared. They spoke with the doctor. I was fitted with an oxygen mask and lifted onto a stretcher chair, they kept me upright to ease my breathing, then I was unceremoniously carted down the stairs and into the 'van'.

I felt very dreamy, and although the paramedic sat in the back of the van with me, spoke to me, reassuring me, it all seemed unreal. Maybe I was ill?

Despite the oxygen, I began to feel very sleepy and by the time I was rushed into A&E, I was mostly out of it. I didn't feel the drips or the catheter being inserted, nor remember them moving me up to a ward sometime later.

I do recollect waking up and being able to breathe somewhat easier. I missed the tour, I was still in hospital. Stella would record it on a DVD and bring it into me, I played it on my laptop, so I was always a day behind. Cavendish won four stages, we'd have seen at least one if I hadn't died.

Dr Kelly was charged with sorting me out, his consultant was abroad on holiday - if he was watching the TdF, I was going to kill him when he got back.

I suppose the only consolation was that the month of July was one of the wettest and nastiest on record, so even if I'd been home or working, I wouldn't have been able to ride my bikes - it was too wet and at times very windy.

They talked about discharging me a couple of times, until Simon spoke loudly about litigation if I wasn't fixed this time. I was getting some exercise in the gym using the stationary bike and also a treadmill. Both made me feel as if I should never be able to run or ride like I did before, ever again. However, the physio in charge, a nice guy named Ahmed, reassured me that I should return to full fitness in time. When I asked how long, he shrugged and suggested the 'piece of string' answer.

I asked if I could bring in my own bike and a set of rollers, but it was refused, it wasn't standard equipment. I was getting problems with the bike, it was hurting my knees - being less than properly set up for me unlike my own bikes. So I began to use the treadmill each day and after that, running around the hospital grounds when it didn't rain.

By the time I left the hospital, I could run for nearly an hour although I still became breathless, it was a normal sort of post exertion type of breathlessness. I couldn't wait to sit on a real bike again, this time knowing, I really was recovering. I also promised myself that I'd watch as much of next year's tour as I could.