Affairs of the Heart - A Night in A&E

The last thing you expect on a Sunday night after a day of coffee, house cleaning and blogging is to end up in A&E with mysterious chest pains… especially when you’re 23. To be completely honest, I’d experienced chest pains 6 months before and had called my dad, asking him to drive me 40 miles to the emergency doctor before being told by said doctor that nothing was wrong with me and that I should go back to sleep. I’d also had a few twinges in the last couple of weeks, but me, the workaholic with a fear of illness, chose to ignore them.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, they were there. As I tidied the flat, made some lentil dhal for dinner (which I didn’t completely devour as usual) and began to write that week’s 378 blog, the pains shifted across my chest. The scary thing was, they were mostly on the left side. The aches switched to twinges; mini heart attacks as far as my brain was concerned but, knowing me, I was just panicking and making things worse. So I packed up my laptop and walked through the rain into town, in search of a coffee and some wifi.

My ECG Results

Two soya hazelnut lattes and a minor disagreement with the internet connection later, and I ended up at the Pavilion Dance office, stealing my workplace’s internet and helping out on Front of House in return. Still in pain. After eating something, the twinges and aches subsided a little and I concluded that I was just being stupid.

But at 2am, as the pains got progressively worse and I could not sleep at all, I fumbled for my phone and stuck my symptoms into NHS Direct’s symptom checker. The message was plain, in huge red letters – CALL 999. Feeling my breathing lean slightly towards hyperventilation, I called NHS Direct and was told the same thing by their operators before being directed to a nurse. After 30mins and a million questions, the message was a little less urgent; call the emergency doctor. So I did. And she told me to call 999.

So at 2:45am on a Monday morning, I’m ringing my friend and work colleague, Cally, begging for her to pick up. Her phone is on silent, whilst I’m having a panic attack on the other end. By a stroke of luck, Cally had saved her fiancé’s number into my phone when her phone had died a few days prior. I rang Gus. The rather sleepy American picked up and I garbled some gobble-di-gook about how sorry I was and how I really needed Cally right now.

Cally was brilliant. In the calmest voice I’ve ever heard, she just said: “Sit down. I’ll be there in 10 minutes.” Sure enough, she was. I called the ambulance and she beat it to me. And while the paramedics stuck wires all over me, she packed a bag, managing to find both my contraceptive pill and my knicker drawer. Points to Cally for that one.

In the ambulance, the paramedics reassured me that I wasn’t having a heart attack; that my vital signs were currently fine, but that the only way to figure out what was happening to me was to go to hospital for a blood test. Cally triple checked that my front door was locked and jumped in.

I have to hand it to the A&E department at Bournemouth Royal – they are brilliant. Just minutes after I arrived I was having my second ECG and they checked my blood pressure (which they did every hour following).

Although still very uncomfortable, I don’t think you can help but people watch in a situation like that. The patient that arrived after me was a middle aged man who appeared to be extremely ill – I don’t think I’ll ever be able to describe his legs clearly; they were blotchy, and covered in dimples. It wasn’t long before those dimples were explained, as one of the nurses asked him what he had taken and he yelled “Heroin” before a range expletives and a stream of consciousness wondering why no one was giving him another hit.

Souvenir Hospital Bracelet!

He was abusive, and very rude to all of the staff. Yes, he was in pain, and they couldn’t give him anything for it because of what he’d taken (and of course a slight distrust as to whether he was telling the whole truth). It’s a whole other debate, I’m sure you’ll agree, but it brought a shocking truth home that taxpayers’ money goes to help out someone who chose to destroy themselves in that way. The drunken woman who fell out of bed next to him proved the point even further.

But what was really depressing, or more heart-wrenching, was the old lady who came in, also with chest pains. But unlike me, she was completely alone. Cally stayed by my side; awake, chatty and reassuring for the 5 hours I was in A&E. This lady had no one, from beginning to end. It’s the sad reality in our society these days that old people are abandoned by their families as useless or just too much hard work. With the heroin addict across from her, and the scary thoughts that chest pains bring to the average human being, this lady really could have done with someone familiar with her. I hope someone at least joined her after I was discharged.

My blood test came back fine, my blood sugar and blood pressure stayed within their normal limits. But just to be sure, the hospital decided to give me an X-ray so that they could see into my chest cavity. Again, all normal, but I was so appreciative of the efforts to find out what was wrong with me.

6 days later, I still have the pains in my chest and I’ve been advised to go to my GP to find other ways of figuring out what’s wrong. I confess, even after 6 months living in Bournemouth, I hadn’t quite got around to registering with a new doctor yet, but I was round there like a flash as soon as I’d caught up on lost sleep. After peeing in a pot and having some random machine take my height, weight, BMI and blood pressure (again!) I’m all signed up and hoping to see a doctor soon. We have a theory at work that it might be caused by anxiety – I’m far too much of a worrier and I stress myself out quite a lot. Then again, I have this weird theory that I wouldn’t be as good at my job if I didn’t. Most people think I’m wrong on that one!

Just goes to show though, how one hospital may fob you off as being dramatic, and another will do everything just to make damned sure you’re okay.