There’s a clot in your leg

On the Wednesday when the doctor persuaded me to go for an appointment at the clinic, I limped up to floor one of the hospital and sat on an uncomfortable plastic waiting room chair that made my leg hurt even more. Would it be too much of a cliché to say that I knew deep down what the result would be? I did. I was so nervous I was shaking and sick, but the result was still completely a shock.

I was ushered onto a couch and a doctor put gel on my inside leg and did an ultrasound in four places, which took all of twenty seconds.

“Done, and the reason we’re done so quickly is because you’ve got a blood clot.”

“Oh my God! Where?”

“All down your leg.”

Not a little clot then. Something that had backed up and backed up like a constipated colon until it had almost reached my pelvis. I held J.’s hand, cried and shook until the consultant coolly shooed us out into the waiting area to wait for the porter to bring a wheelchair up from emergency admissions.

He wasn’t really a man of much compassion, but would you be if you’d been doing that job for twenty years?