Aren’t people nice

Roz had a seizure tonight while we were at the pub (having cycled there as practice for the Bristol - Bath cycle ride #exeter is planning). Just after Dave and Dave arrived she had an aura which progressed into a full seizure. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time for us to move to a grassy area and she ended up on the ground not far from the table.

Roz having seizures at home I can deal with, but she’s not had one outside (while I’ve been with her, at least). It presents all kinds of problems, including the fact she has to recover in unfamiliar surroundings (waking up and not recognising properly where you are or knowing what happened must be bad enough, but to do it somewhere that ultimately turns out to be a strange place must suck), the fact that we were slightly off the middle of nowhere and the potential for gawping passers-by.

Luckily, the public came to the rescue. Before the seizure had even finished someone from another table had supplied his thick fleece for Roz to rest her head on adding that “my wife has epilepsy”. Oh snap! By the time it was coming to an end and (as I tend to) I was getting worried about if this was “just another” seizure or something worse, a lady from another table joined us and offered her services as a trained first-aider.

This turned out to be very convenient because she was highly competent and looked after Roz while I called for an ambulance. While I was pretty sure she’d be ok (having not bounced off the ground and still breathing), I figured I could do with all the help I could get. The unnamed lady was very good and kept Roz talking (at increasing levels of coherency) while we waited for the ambulance to arrive. Meanwhile, Dave B took off (figuratively speaking) on his bike to go get his car.

It turns out the anonymous first-aider (to whom I would like to offer an apology for runing her romatic evening with her partner by collapsing next to her table) turned out to be the manager of “a pub on Magdalene Street, called the Mount Radford.” I used to live immediately next door to the Raddie - small world!

The ambulance arrived and the paramedic took over, giving Roz some oxygen and doing a few tests to make sure she was ok. Once things had settled down a bit she left, to be replaced by Dave B who had specially driven his new car (owned for less than a few hours) to pick us up and take us home. Dave G stayed with the bikes we had to abandon until I could return with the car and bike rack to pick them up.

All in all, through friends and random members of the general public, it was a lot less traumatic for me than it could have otherwise been - and hopefully it was for Roz too.

Thanks everyone.

Theveryone.