Sunday fun, part 4, wherein the tale concludes like a comedy of errors

Probably about 3.15 am Monday morning
Finally we are called and led through to a curtained area by an Asian doctor man (Asian as in Indian or Pakistani, rather than Chinese or Japanese), and he goes through all the same questions yet again. He tells me that he'd like to take my blood pressure, draw blood for testing, get a urine sample, and do an ECG on me. This all sounds like it's going to take a loooong time.

I don't know what order he did things, but I do remember a big fuck-off needle going into my arm and drawing out a syringeful of thick black blood. The missus watches the whole thing; I decline. I'm not a big fan of watching needles entering my flesh. I ask whether it is supposed to look so dark, my blood, and he replies that it is perfectly normal. Okay... Within a few minutes of having half an armful of blood drained from me, I am feeling lightheaded again, so I have a lie down on the bed.

We wait quite a long time then for a nurse to come and do the ECG. When she arrives -- she put me in mind of a Greek, quite stocky but pleasant, and very chatty -- she asks me to lift my shirt and proceeds to cover me with sticky pads. She comments that the tattoos are well positioned to help her with the applications. One is stuck on the right side of my chest; three on the left; another one on each of my sides; one on each upper arm; and one just above each ankle. I think that's all. Then she attaches some cables to me. The cables are connected to a central interface that then feeds into the ECG machine. She turns on the machine.

"Oh...," she says, and checks all the connections again. Back to the machine. "Hmmm... According to this, you're flatlining!"

"I think I'm alive," I say, though to be honest I feel like death.

"Let me go and get another machine." And off she goes.

It must be at least five long minutes later that she returns with a new, snazzier machine. But as flash as it is, it doesn't have a screen, so she can't tell if it's working until actually printing off the results. So I get all hooked up again, and she presses a button. Nothing. Still flatline. I'm beginning to think I am dead and this is my hell. She tweaks my sticky pads and leads and puts sticky tape on some to hold them in place. Try again. Zip. She is staying pleasant, but I'm fast losing my patience and energy.

She decides to get someone to help, and in comes the triage nurse. I am asked to remove my shirt. This seems sensible, and I wonder why I wasn't asked earlier. All the leads and connections are gone over and another attempt is made. Still nothing. So off they go in search of another machine. When they reappear I think they have the old machine again, but I couldn't swear to it... We go through the same rigmarole once more, with the same results, before yet another nurse is called, this time the matron, if memory serves.

I've lost track of the time, 'kay?
Now there are three of them milling around my torso. One of them asks: "Could it be the tattoos affecting it?" A reply comes: "No, it shouldn't be... Are they new, these tattoos?" I say: "This one is, the others no." Of course it's not the tattoos. It's amazing how little people in the medical profession know about tattoos and piercings... Anyway, sometime over the course of the next ten minutes, I stop flatlining, and the nurses flee. Yay!

The doctor comes back with the results of half of my blood work. He'd estimated this would take one and a half to 2 hours, so that gives me some indication of how long I have been there waiting for the ECG. The results show high white-cell count. I'm also showing low blood pressure (which I knew from earlier in the evening). The ECG is fine. I go off to do my urine sample. The results of this come back quickly: slight infection. (This is weird since I've felt totally fine "down there"!) Also, I've got a mild case of gastritis, which could be from food poisoning. I know it's from the pastie I reheated for dinner Sunday night. Urgh! I'm given some antibiotics and am told to drink plenty of fluids and to drink a hydrating solution available from the chemist. We can go, at last.

4.45 am Monday morning
We make our way to the freephone to call for a taxi. I'm asked if I can ring back in half an hour and then they'll be able to tell me if a cab is available. Yeah, right. I dig around in my wallet for details of a cab firm close to where we live. We go outside to call on the mobile. It's daylight; where did the night go? The cab will come out right away; it'll take about 20 minutes and cost £25; and can I pay over the phone with a debit or credit card, please? Sure. I guess they don't want to make such a long journey to find we're gone when they get here.

Taxi man arrives after yet another tediously long-seeming wait. He drives like a motherfucking bat out of hell. I'm clasping, as I have been all evening, a little cardboard sick tray and a plastic sickbag that the ambulance crew gave me, feeling certain that I am going to need them any minute. In the event, miraculously, I don't.

5.30 am Monday morning
We arrive home. It's been five and a half hours since I collapsed. Cat is awaiting our arrival, deeply confused by the whole affair. He wasn't at home when we left with the ambulance, so he came in to an empty house. We go to bed, desperately hoping to get some sleep.

Sunday fun, part 3

About 1 am, I guess
On entry into the hospital I am once again made highly aware of the Simpsons night shirt that I am wearing. The eyes of what seem like a hundred drunks and thugs alight upon me. I know I am also snow-white pale. I take the denim jacket that Red had draped over my shoulders and put it on properly.

I don't know how long we wait in reception, but I know that by the time we have seen the triage nurse (and answered all the same questions yet again) it is about 1.30 am. She is tall and slim with dark hair [apparently she was blonde, though that's not how I remember her] and glasses and the sort of shoes only ever worn by people who are on their feet all day. She sends us back into reception to wait for a doctor to call us. We sit...

The wait is interminable, and I bide my time by staring at the red splashes of vomit on my shoes and the ends of my jeans. Red buys me a bottle of water from the 24-hour kiosk (after being told it's now okay for me to drink), but it's too cold to drink more than a tiny sip. I also make several trips to the bathroom, which is conveniently very nearby. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know I also have the sense not to get down on my hands and knees in such an unclean environment. (For all the cleaning that goes on there, basic problems like blood on the armrest of chairs still exist.) Fortunately, I don't need to kneel anyway, for now my body wants to emit from its other end. I use the toilet with embarrassing frequency, every time shitting through the eye of a needle.

While on one of my bathroom visits, I moisten some hand towels to dab on my face and neck to keep me awake. I'm exhausted from wanting to sleep as well as from the energy used thus far into the evening.

People come and go: an old woman in a wheelchair with an obviously very painful leg; a young lad holding a white towel to his eyes and with damp marks on the knees of his grey sweatpants; a woman with a massive black eye, accompanied by her man. I also see a girl who works in our local convenience store. She walks past two or three times, and later I see that it seems she is there with a few family members.

2.30 am Monday morning
The wife goes to the bathroom and I see someone who has been waiting longer than us approach the reception counter. She asks how much longer she will have to wait. This doesn't bode well. She's told she's the next to be called, but I have no idea how long after her we came in. On Red's return I ask her to find out. "There are three more before you," she's told. "The person at the top of the list has been waiting two and a half hours." From that we deduce that it'll probably be another 45 minutes or so before we get seen.

Conversation is limited. Red and I are both exhausted. She'd not slept well the night before so was hoping to catch up Sunday night. Oops. I continue my regular bathroom trips while we wait and wait. And we people-watch and discuss what we see under our breath and mostly in Italian, so as to avoid being caught out. But we didn't bitch too much; that would be rude.

Sunday fun, part 2

About 12.20 am
The paramedic arrives. He takes my details and information about what has happened, doubtless as much to check my mental state as for diagnosis purposes. He then encourages me to sit up very slowly, before helping me to my feet and walking me through the kitchen and into the lounge, where we wait for the ambulance. His name is Les or Len, I remember -- it was on his name badge -- and he gives me some oxygen to help counter my lightheadedness. He also takes a small blood sample from my left thumb to check something...

The ambulance arrives and Wife lets the staff into the house. They are two young blonde women. Even in this debilitated state, my vanity allows me an internal chuckle at how much of a mess I look sitting there, at 37 years of age, probably with vomit round my mouth and wearing a Simpsons pyjama top. This same top (which is T-shirt stylee) will go on to feel more conspicuous as the night runs into early morning.

The ambulance girls ask many of the same questions that the paramedic had asked, and between the three of them and Wife (who was concerned I may have had some kind of seizure) they decided I ought to get checked out at the hospital. We are advised to bring some money to get back from the hospital afterwards. I am helped to the ambulance, where I lie down on a gurney and am given more oxygen by mask. Wife joins me inside, and many of the same questions are asked yet again, this time for the purposes of documentation. We then set off on the 10-mile journey.

Wow, talk about a bumpy ride! I stay on my back the entire time, feeling every dip and hump in the road on the sparsely padded gurney. Once in a while I smile at Wife, who is seated down near my feet, though I don't know how visible my smiles are through the mask.

The short trip takes about 20 minutes, I guess -- difficult to say -- and on arrival I am unhooked from the oxygen and helped down the steps and into a wheelchair in the hospital car park. I sit and immediately throw up once exposed to the cool night air. And again. And again. And I think once more. Wife heaved as the wind carried the scent of my expulsions towards her.

I seem to have emptied myself, so I am wheeled into the A&E (accident and emergency) reception area to await the triage nurse.

Sunday fun, part 1

12 midnight Sunday night going into Monday morning
I wake covered in sweat, feeling for all the world that I need to throw up or take a dump. I jump out of bed, groaning loudly at the inevitability of the situation, and start to head for the stairs down to the bathroom. All the while I am aware that (a) I can hardly walk straight and (b) Wife is calling out, asking if I'm okay. At the last three steps I stumble, virtually falling the rest of the way. I crash into the kitchen and make my way through most of its length. I drop.

Next thing I know it's a couple of minutes later. I wake, wondering where I am. I'm in the bathroom now, lying on my side on the floor. I kneel over the toilet and let rip. I'm also now aware that Wife is on the phone trying to get an ambulance. She sounds very stressed. I had been unresponsive to her attempts to revive me from my blackout. My teeth had been clenched fast, and my body as stiff as a board. She is advised over the phone not to give me anything to drink and to come and check I'm breathing. By now she has heard me throwing up, so she knows I'm awake, but she comes to check I'm okay anyway, then returns to the phone.

She is told to leave the curtains open and the lights on inside so the paramedics know for sure which house to visit. Then she comes back to me for a couple of minutes while we wait. It seems like forever. I can hardly talk, I'm slurring badly, and I can barely lift my arms, legs, or head. Everything seems so difficult. Still, I have enough presence of mind to ask for some trousers.

The meaning of honour

On Saturday I was interviewed by a sociologist who is writing a paper on the British honour system and what honour means to people and whether the right people are honoured in the Queen's birthday lists and the like.

I have never subjected myself to this type of experience before, but the author (let's call her M) is the sister of a neighbour, and I was asked, and I thought it would be an interesting experience.

My only fear was that I would be expected to talk on the subject at length, but I don't really know much about it, so I was happy to hear the interview would be Q&A-based.

"Q&A-based"... That's a looser term than I might have anticipated. The first Q was, "So, tell me about yourself."

Thing is, I can talk about myself until the cows come home. I'm "wind me up and watch me go" on the subject of me. It is the one subject that I reckon I know more about than anyone else on the planet. So off I went.

Every once in a while, M would interrupt to have me elaborate on a point, or to go back to something I'd said earlier to contrast against something I'd said later, or to ask a new question and take me in a different direction.

In all, we Q&A'd for about an hour and a quarter or so, and I was actually quite surprised at some of the things that came out of it. Not total surprise, I suppose, because I know myself pretty well; more surprising was the way that a total stranger will take that information and interpret it into something.

That interpretation may be wrong, of course. But when M was saying stuff back to me and (not in a bad way) pigeonholing me, she was right every time.

All of this background stuff is essential for setting my views of the honour system into some sort of context in order to see how people from different socioeconomic groups perceive the system. The whole thing got a little more complicated when I had to talk about things other than me, like honour and OBEs, MBEs, etc.

But it was a fascinating experiment for me, and I'm looking forward to reading the transcript and then doing the follow-up interview in a few weeks' time.