Calling 000

I called my first-ever ambulance on the day my father passed away.

After leaving the nursing home, we decompressed around my sister’s dining table for an hour, then Mum headed home for an early night.

My sister and I cracked open a bottle of shiraz and settled on her couch to watch the final episode of the Kylie Minogue documentary on Netflix (which is a must-see, so, so good).

My sister’s phone rang about 15 minutes before the final credits rolled. It was my mum’s friend Frances, letting us know Mum was really ill.

My sister had elderly dogs to wrangle, so I grabbed an umbrella and headed into the stormy night.

I arrived to find my mother semi-conscious on the sofa, rousing every few minutes to be violently ill.

Making adulty decisions is scary. You’d think I’d have nailed it by now. But I wasn’t sure on next steps. Should I call an ambulance? I’d never called an ambulance before, it was new territory.

Mum has one of those emergency buzzers in her apartment, so I decided to press that. I told the nice man who answered that my mum was really dizzy, couldn’t stand up and was vomiting uncontrollably.

He called an ambulance, but said the service was experiencing high demand so it might take up to two hours.

Mum was too sick and unsteady to move, so we chose not to self-transport her to the nearest hospital.

For the next two and a half hours the man would ring back every 30 minutes to check on my mum, as did the 000 people. Every time the 000 people rang they would ask if my mum was bleeding and I would say no, but she’s 83, her husband died today, she’s really dizzy, she keeps losing consciousness and she’s violently ill.

They were really fixated on the blood thing and whether it was hard to rouse my mum. Not terribly hard, but concerning that she kept drifting off.

They would apologise and say they were still experiencing significant demand so it would take a while to get an ambulance there.

We gave up waiting at 11.30pm, when the worst seemed to be over. I called the nice man on the emergency buzzer and asked him to cancel the ambulance. Frances and another kind neighbour helped my mum into bed.

We put fresh sheets on my dad’s bed and I crawled under the covers.

I did not get much sleep.

I wondered if I would lose both my parents on the same day.

I heard my mum moan around 5.30am and raced to her bedroom to make sure she was OK.

Yep, she was OK.

I crept over to her bedroom doorway an hour later to make sure she was breathing steadily, then I drifted off for an hour.

When my mum woke at 9am she was feeling much better, albeit sore from all the heaving. We had a chat with Dr Google, who suggested she’d experienced stress-induced vertigo.

Stress and anxiety can elevate hormones that impair the function of your vestibular system, potentially causing vertigo.

It was a bloody stressful day. I’m surprised we didn’t all get it.

She’s promised to see an actual doctor, just to be on the safe side.

And now it’s Monday. I don’t feel like getting out of bed, but walking the dogs and working will be a good distraction.

Song of the day: ABBA “SOS”