Encounter with Fate

Thursday 5th May, the day started normally enough all I was going to do was to have some staples removed from a graft some 120-140sq mm on the top of my head. They had tended to be uncomfortable when you touched the top of the head, they sent a number of piecing pains down into the skull. This was the result of surgery to remove a  melanoma.

All went according to plan until around 9pm ,while washing up I felt liquid running down my face , at first I thought it was tomato sauce but quickly realised as the volume increased that I was bleeding from the wound on my head, By now it was running into my eyes as I could no longer see, into my ears and down inside my shirt. The volume increased considerably as I called out to Heather that something was very wrong, I watched in horror as the sink started to fill with blood as the flow seemed to running down my face in every direction.By now I was feeling giddy  Heather rushed into the kitchen and seemed to know exactly what to do. She wrapped a towel around my head asking me to press hard on the wound. The graft had given way and I was pumping blood profusely everywhere.The blood in the bottom of the sink now a few mm deep was starting to congeal and seemed to resemble thickened custard, while my face ,
beard took on very red hue of congealed blood.

Slowly she encouraged me to slide down the kitchen cupboard until I sat on the floor, while she ran between the telephone and the kitchen. I must confess that this felt like the end had come ,I could not conceive how we were going to stop the blood flow. The dizziness increased as I seemed to be slipping away to a deep sleep. Somehow I felt great tiredness come over me as I struggle to remain conscious. My bowels gave away and no matter how hard I tried there was nothing I could do.

Somehow an ambulance arrived and vaguely I heard a voice saying my blood pressure was 70 and still dropping. There still was no music in my ears as I have always felt I would hear Albinoi's concerto in the background as I was whisked away across the River Sykes. The original warm feeling started to ebb away and I felt quite cold. Sometime later after being pumped with enough liquid by the medico I arrive at Calvary Hospital where the duty doctor restitched the wound and stopped the bleeding.

During this experience I could not help feeling that all this was not possible, there were too many unfinished project , who would look after Heather, so many painting still in their formative stage, Mei portrait, the Marie Island series not to mention the Vietnam suit. Still this morning I seemed to have recovered and have no more than a bad headache from this nightmare.