Woke at four on Friday morning clutching my chest and alarmed to find that my left arm felt like a brick. NHS Direct put the willies up me and pointed me in the direction of my nearest accident and emergency service. Fearing imminent death the wife drove me there and then my day of horror began.....
I was seen immediately because 'chest pains' is like 'open sesame' or for that matter 'asylum please' in the world of the NHS. I had a needle rammed up my hand and blood taken by a slap dash doctor, an ECG and a chest x-ray. All proved ok and I would have been allowed to go home there and then but for me letting slip that I had a family history of dicky tickers. That was red rag to a bull and I was wheeled up to the cardiology ward.
You should have seen me, the shame of it. I was in a hospital gown, with trainers and socks on, protesting that 'really, there's no need to fuss' trying to pull the blanket over my legs that I had slovenly not shaved for a while.
When I reached the ward I asked if I could 'just nip to the loo' but was told that I would have to use a comode! I was rigged up to a heart monitor and lay there without any dignity and just a bag of satsumas for company.
In the space of the day I had six different women touching my boobs, which under normal circumstances could hold a certain appeal. They had to keeping lifting them so they could stick those little patches on me. In the end I was wired up like a bloody Christmas tree, flashing my knickers and not my lights.
In the end ofcourse, I was all ok and allowed to go home, my pains were put down to indigestion, no doubt with a big rubber munchausen stamp on my medical records. The shame of it.
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