Guess whose coming out for dinner. www.scientificanimations.com, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Easter weekend started so normally.
There’s a “delicacies shopping list” to die for on the Maundy Thursday page of Janie’s diary, with prosciutto ham, guinea fowl breasts and Aberdeen Angus fillet all listed next to “Harvey Nics” opening times. Back then Janie used the butchers there.
On the evening of Good Friday, I went to my parents’ house for Pesach sedar night, which Janie skipped that year. Janie acquired more of a taste for such events than me by the end of my parents’ lives, but at that time, Janie wanted some well-earned rest instead and who could blame her.
We played tennis on the Saturday morning – the first reference to playing that year. Janie booked Court 8 it says.
Janie’s diary says we had dinner at Noughts & Crosses on the Saturday evening, although I am struggling to work out when we were supposed to eat all that yummy grub she brought back from Harvey Knickers. I suppose one of the meals was Thursday night and one intended for the Monday.
Sunday dinner at The Mainellis (or accurately at that time I should say Michael Mainelli & Elisabeth Reuss). This event was at Elisabeth’s place in Chiswick/Gunnersbury. It was possibly revenge…I mean reciprocation…for the Wild Boar evening a couple of months earlier:
Elisabeth proudly served us sauerbraten, a German national dish. We had a very pleasant evening and of course sank more-than-reasonable quantities of alcohol; it would have been churlish of us as guests to do otherwise.
Both Janie and I struggled to digest all of that in the night. What I didn’t realise was that my “almost to be expected” digestive struggle was as nothing compared with the pain Janie was feeling.
We called the doctor, who suggested that she brave out what was probably just over-indulgence or food poisoning. Once Janie was doubled with pain, we called the doctor again and a locum came to Sandall Close to see her. He diagnosed food poisoning, “which can be very painful” and gave her a pain-killing shot.
The pain-killing shot provided Janie with some temporary relief. But once that shot wore off and she was doubled over again in agonising pain, I called for an ambulance.
Which was just as well.
Because it transpired that Janie had pancreatitis resulting from a gall stone getting trapped in her pancreatic duct. Her gall bladder was over-flowing with stones. Just the thought of it is agonisingly painful.
The A&E doctors seemed very young and they gave us reassurance in the way that only well-trained, following all the protocols doctors can.
They told us that they thought they had the matter under control and that most people of Janie’s age and health (normally very good) would recover fully from the ordeal…but that pancreatitis is an extremely dangerous and serious condition so it was possible that Janie wouldn’t survive.
I had driven to the hospital in my own car, behind the ambulance, as advised by the ambulance crew. I drove back to Sandall Close alone in the early hours of the Tuesday morning. I put on the car radio for that short journey. The DJ was playing Miserlou by Dick Dale & His Del-Tones on the radio…
…well it was 1995 when Pulp Fiction was all the rage. I can no longer hear that tune without thinking of that lonely drive home.
SPOILER ALERT! Janie didn’t die. In fact, she recovered well and quickly.
A fortnight later, she had her gall bladder removed on the Monday to ensure that no such episode could happen again. She had the stitches removed on the Saturday and we played tennis the next day and the day after that, which was Bank Holiday Monday.
Tough cookie, is Janie. But I haven’t noticed her choosing to eat sauerbraten again since that Easter weekend.