14.correct diagnosis

It has taken me 20 years of retirement to observe an acute medical case from its onset to its conclusion.

Yesterday afternoon I had just finished my slide talk [on the story of Noah and its ramifications] when one of the students remained asleep. That is not unusual: after lunch, the lights are down... I often notice some of my mature audience nodding off. Harry does so - when he comes. And Mildred claims that shutting her eyes helps her to concentrate - except that thereby she misses the slides...

But her friend was not able to rouse my student properly. She brought her some water, but the lady could not stand up. As I was both 'the tutor', and 'a doctor', I was obviously responsible.

She was very drowsy, barely rousable. But no facial or limb weakness were apparent. Then her friend remarked that she was very sweaty, and the penny dropped immediately. 'Are you diabetic?' I shouted. - She said yes. 'Are you on Insulin?' - She said yes. So I ran to the kitchen to fetch sugar [in sachets] and a teaspoon.
She was able to 'eat' it and within a minutes or two she began to wake up.

'Have you had anything like this before?' - She said no. That was a bit worrying.
But by then she was able to tell us, that she had glucose tablets in her handbag - so we gave her two more.

She was still very weak, and it took Paula and Cliff on either side all their strength to help her descend the stairs to the foyer. We all agreed that she should be assessed in Hospital, and certainly could not drive herself home. The office called an ambulance - which came within some 10 or 15 minutes.

They were excellent, cheerful and professional. Nowadays they put on rubber gloves, and all the information that she gave them - date of birth, postcode, phone number etc. - by now she was fully coherent - was duly written on one of their gloves. Ball pens write particularly well on latex. Presumably it is copied later, or else they just file the gloves.

She has had diabetes - on Insulin - for many years. She lived alone, and had no relatives, but she did not want to be taken to the hospital. She knew that she would be kept waiting there for hours, and they would only repeat the same tests. And most important, she had two cats in the house... I hate cats - cunning beast who only pretend affection in the expectation of food and care: animal harlots.

By then her blood sugar was found to be normal, and after they also checked her blood pressure, they agreed to let her friend drive her home.

I phoned her this morning - she was OK. She described, that during the second half of my talk, the slides were getting blurred. And she told me that recently her blood sugar had frequently been low. But it had never happened mid-day: that is why she had replied to my question saying 'never before'.

I stressed the importance of getting her GP, and the diabetes nurse, to sort it out urgently.

Hopefully I'll see her at my next talk in a fortnight. Does this qualify for a U3A 'accident report'? Elsa offered to file one anyway. But not on a latex glove.