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Irene Spelling wasn’t dead but she wasn’t feeling at all well. She was also highly embarrassed by the ineffective covering a towel was affording.
‘Do you know what happened?’ Laura asked.
‘I came over all funny when I stood up. Next thing I know I’m lying on the floor and my head hurts.’
A superficial scalp wound caused by grazing her head on the corner of the vanity unit had produced copious amounts of blood, but the facecloth Irene was pressing to the area had it under control for the moment. Laura was more concerned by potential causes for the faint.
‘How are you feeling now, Irene?’
‘Like I’m going to be sick. And there’s a funny ringing noise in my ears.’
‘Let’s lie you down,’ Laura directed. ‘And lift your legs a bit.’ Irene’s husband assisted by sitting on the toilet seat and holding her feet on his lap. ‘Can you get a blood pressure, please, Tim?’
Tim was fitting an oxygen mask on Irene’s face. He reached for the blood-pressure cuff as Laura started peeling the backs off the electrodes needed to get more information about what was happening in Irene’s cardiovascular system.
The bath had been a hot one – Laura could feel the steamy heat surrounding them. Just as well it didn’t smell like a pudding, Laura thought fleetingly, or she might have trouble concentrating on what she was supposed to be doing.
The heat of the water and surrounding air could have caused a level of vasodilation enough to interfere with the normal mechanisms that adjusted blood pressure to posture. The reduction in blood supply to the heart had a knock-on effect of reducing supply to the brain, and was a common enough cause for fainting, but Laura needed to rule out any more serious cause such an underlying cardiac condition or reaction to medications.
‘Your ECG looks fine,’ she reassured Irene and her husband a minute later. ‘You don’t have any heart problems that you know of, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Anything else you’re being treated for?’
‘No. Well…’ Irene looked embarrassed again. ‘I’m taking some of that new stuff that’s supposed to help you lose weight.’
‘BP’s a hundred over fifty,’ Tim reported.
‘That’s a bit on the low side,’ Laura explained. ‘But it’s only to be expected if you’ve had a fainting episode. Do you know what your blood pressure normally is?’
‘I think it’s a bit high. My doctor told me it was another reason I needed to lose weight. I am trying. I’ve hardly eaten anything today, have I, Colin?’
‘No,’ her husband confirmed. ‘Just rabbit food.’
‘That might have been a contributing factor to the faint,’ Laura said. ‘We’ll check your blood sugar and then I’ll have a look at where you hit your head.’
Irene had ‘come over all funny’ well before she’d come into contact with the vanity unit and she appeared quite alert now so a head injury was unlikely to have been responsible for the period of unconsciousness, but Laura intended to make a thorough check.
Fifteen minutes later, both she and Tim were satisfied that Irene was fine.
‘I’m feeling ever so much better,’ she informed them.
‘BP’s up to one thirty over ninety,’ Tim reported.
‘Blood sugar’s normal.’ Laura dropped the small finger-pricking device into the sharps container. ‘And everything else checks out. There’s really no need for us to take you into hospital, Irene, but if you or Colin need any more reassurance then we’re happy to do so.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ Irene insisted. ‘All I want to do is get dressed and have some supper.’
‘Good idea.’ Tim smiled. ‘We’re about due for some supper ourselves.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea before you go?’ Irene pushed her arms into the dressing-gown Laura was holding for her. ‘I’ve got a lovely banana cake that my daughter brought round this afternoon.’
‘That’s very kind of you but we’ll have to get back on station,’ Laura said with a smile.
Tim caught Laura’s eye as she coiled the lead wires and slotted them back into a pocket of the life pack. ‘With a bit of luck there might even be a muffin left for us.’
‘Oh, take the cake with you,’ Irene exclaimed. ‘I shouldn’t be eating it anyway and Colin hates banana cake.’
