[Sundae]

Dad collapsed today. At least that's how it looked to us.
I was tonging my hair for the visit of my bro & SIL that afternoon (it takes a long time) when Mum suddenly screamed my name and as I answered, "Yes?" as you do, she screamed again "Get down here right now!"

To me it could only be Diz-related, I assumed he'd eaten the roast or something, so I took the time to put my hairbrush down and scoop him up in my arms. We have agreed in future she will shout "Your Dad's ill!"

Came downstairs to see her holding him up against the front door. With me there she was able to let him into a controlled lie-down and put him in the recovery position so he could be sick (just a bit of bile). He'd been heading to the toilet and said, "I don't feel very good" and she'd recognised things were not good, jumped up and caught him.

I called 999 and a HUGE paramedic arrived. Honstely, I was terrified about Dad, but I had to keep stopping myself from asking how tall he was. 6'5" at least, and broad with it. From Zimbabwe, but with an accent softened enough by time to almost be Antipodean.

He came armed with many gadgets and boxes and ran every test possible on Dad, before concluding that it was more in the nature of a faint than a collapse. He was slightly concerned at Dad's blood pressure but he is on two lots of tablets to lower it, so concluded that these might have exacerbated the issue. He woke up from a nap in his chair with the sudden feeling he was going to be sick, so he probably got up too fast for his heart to correctly respond to his needs.

He's slightly nauseous still, but managed to put down some roast dinner and iced water. We're not letting him move much. One thing that did relieve my mind - as he was sat there, top off, wired up at 12 different points on his body he offered that I should take a photo. Gutted that I didn't. That would have been one for the album.

So he's had his lungs checked, his heart, his blood pressure resting and standing and then resting again, his urine. All over and all comes back fine, except that his blood pressure is on the lower end of normal.

Last time he did this to Mum (saying the exact same words) he ended up in hospital having a stent put in.

So I'm not upset. And I'm not scared like I was when he first went down. But it's horrible to see something like this happen to him and especially with him still feeling a bit crook.