We have a van! (by alaric)

Now all I need is a driving licence to drive it with, sigh.

Freedom! (by alaric)

They've released Sarah from hospital!

She's now staying at her parent's place, since it has a downstairs she can live in until she's strong enough to climb stairs again, but she's free!

Things are looking up (by alaric)

Sarah went in for a scan yesterday to look for blood clots in her lungs - and they didn't see any!

So either the past week of anticoagulants have dissolved them, or the clots are/where only in her legs, or it wasn't clots at all.

But she's definitely looking better; she's getting more lively again, and gets breathless less easily!

The scan was interesting. It was one of those where they inject you with a radioisotope, then use a sensitive imaging scintillation detector to get a map of where the isotope has ended up in your body.

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We’re still alive! (by alaric)

Today's bombings, and the refreshing efficiency of the emergency services in dealing with it, have reminded me that I planned to get back with St John Ambulance, and do some more volunteering to do first aid at events.

Right now, they're officially saying about 40 dead and 700 injured.

I wonder if the overall death rate in London today is higher than usual, because of the extra 40, or lower, due to the disruption meaning less road deaths and murders?

I presume that people are just resigned to accept stabbings and shootings and road accidents and falling off of ladders and fires - all of which, just like a bomb on public transport, can happen to people like you or somebody you know, without warning; and can either kill instantly, or slowly, or maim and disfigure. Yes, it is more alarming when lots of people die in one event rather than hundreds of little ones here and there, and it's a lot more alarming when that one event is a deliberate action, but shock and horror is what terrorists are trying to do - please do whatever can be done to resist them!

And please please please don't let the Government use this to rush in a load of new liberty-reducing anti-terror laws of questionable usefulness...

Blood clots (by alaric)

The doctors are now pretty sure there's blood clots lurking in Sarah. They may get the scan tomorrow, which will reveal how many and where.

They say clots are considered a dangerous condition. Not for the baby, which of course they can pluck out with surgery if Sarah seems unable to keep it supplied with blood for any reason, but for Sarah - they can dislodge and zoom round the circulatory system, then wedge somewhere, causing heart attacks or brain damage; the kinds of things that kill people or turn them into vegetables.

Sigh. I was just beginning to think that the part of my life where the things most precious to me were regularly taken from me due to things beyond my control might have been coming to an end. Perhaps not.