This is somewhat of a serious post but please bear with me.
On Sunday just gone, I was bimbling around at home when I got a sudden pain in the chest. I thought it was down to me having shifted some stuff around in the house and maybe pulled a muscle. Was it that or something more sinister? I was in two minds what to do.
I thought about having a brandy and laying down for a while and rest it. I then considered the more sinister options and so to cover bases, I had two puffs of my GTN spray (out of date) and chewed an aspirin… no result. Another two puffs.. no result. Something in the intelligent part of my brain said “Wanker, dial the 9’s”, So I did.
Ambulance arrived, hooked up to ECG, which showed nothing. Second paramedic turned up and was put on ECG again. This the time the words from them were “Not good, we need to get going”. Oh fuck!
Blues and twos straight away. By now the pains were like nothing I’ve EVER experienced, Pretty much how I would expect to feel if I was being crushed under a car.
After about 10 miles and with 2.5 to go until we got to the hospital, the crew are told to turn around and go to Hastings, which is over 30 miles in opposite direction. Control were told by the crew “He won’t make it that far, were coming to Brighton – now”.
Anyway, was cleared for Brighton, arrived, straight to A&E and straight to theatre, where blockage was cleared (large blood clot) and stent implanted.
NHS have been beyond excellent, from call taker, medics, doctors, nurses, HCAs, to the domestic staff. Every single one did their bit. Hats off to you for making sure I’m still here.
The moral of the story?… any bad, unexplained chest pains, please ring 9’s you guys and gals – no fucking around. As I was told, they’d rather check you out and find it’s indigestion, than turn up to a stiff. I was lucky that I listened to the intelligent portion of my brain that told me to pick up the phone. I wasn’t that far off being brown bread. If you have a GTN spray, check the expiry date, if out of date, get a new one!