Woad is me (or - a right blue mug )

I wake up and my arms are blue.  Well, bluish — like bruising under the skin.  By the time I dress it seems to have faded.  Hmm. Weird. A trick of the light?  

Anniemay’s out in the morning, but when she comes home, it seems to have come back.  She notices.  

It’s on the insides of both arms — from just above my wrist to halfway up my upper arm.  It darkens when I bend my elbows.  I google the NHS website and come up with ‘cyanosis’ — blue skin or light bruising, usually on the extremities.  Various causes, from blood-oxygen depletion to a blood clot in the arm.  I’ve had to increase my warfarin dose recently, so the bit about clotting concerns me.

The NHS website is quite clear — if you’re on warfarin and have unexplained bruising, then ring 111.  Which I do.  

The nurse I speak to does a pretty good assessment over the phone and from my symptoms (and Anniemay’s running commentary) discounts the usual suspects.  But she’s still concerned about the warfarin, so asks me to go the Urgent Care Unit at the hospital “just to check you out.”

We don’t wait too long to be seen and I’m given a thorough assessment — blood-oxygen levels OK, Blood Pressure OK, heart rate OK…..  It’s unlikely to be warfarin bruising, because that wouldn’t affect the whole arm(s).  And it’s nothing to do with knocking back glasses of Carbon-13 on tuesday.

The doctor is puzzled but satisfied that nothing major appears to be wrong.  I too am puzzled, but grateful for the reassurance.

By the time we get home something occurs to me and I mention it to Anniemay.  She has the same thought and looks at the washing instructions on my new sweat shirt; ‘avoid contact with light surfaces during wear as colour may transfer’.

I go and have a shower and scrub my arms thoroughly and sure enough — it disappears. Eventually.

This all happened yesterday.  

I didn’t mention it because I was a bit embarrassed and feeling guilty about wasting NHS resources.  I swore Anniemay to secrecy.  Too late, she told her bike-buddy Anthea this morning.  They had a good laugh.  It’s not funny - I could have dyed.