Sickypoos

What, exactly, is an emergency?
How as I, a mere layman in a pained panic, to diagnose my unknown
medical condition and make that kind of judgment?
I sat, clutching my belly, in the passenger seat of Sarah's Mondeo and
pondered how I would be received when we finally arrived at 'Accident
and Emergency'.
The clue is in the name and I hadn't had an accident so I was putting
all my eggs in the one "emergency" basket and hoped nobody would need
to see something legally binding and signed by a doctor. There would
probably be a sign over the entrance reading, "NO TIME WASTERS PLEASE-
if you think you'll survive you're in the wrong place" but I had to
risk it. If they sent me away with a flea in my ear and a booklet
called "living with wind, an idiot's guide to letting go" then I was
willing to face that particular embarrassment.
The pain had started the previous evening after enough Friday night
pizza to warrant the suppliers giving serious consideration to moving
out of their hut and into a proper building and equally copious amounts
of red wine. I was feeling bloated and uncomfortable but it was only to
be expected. By bed time the bloated feeling hadn't subsided so I lay
back with the usual internal promises of moderation expecting it all to
have blown over (or out) by morning.
As a sleepless night of quiet straining noises and hushed groans,
punctuated by the occasional tutting from Sarah, progressed agonizingly
along I was forced to give some consideration to the possibility that I
wasn't just an ideal candidate for the role of "greedy git" in the next
Rennies commercial. I had, a few months back, suffered with some
similar pains which I had put down to stress, they would come and go
with work worries so I assumed I was developing the family curse,
ulcers.
That was it, I was under stress and it had obviously fired up the
ulcers I wasn't aware I had. I looked at the catalogue of recent
stressful events. Our new house had been flooded. We had managed to
find a temporary house that was agreeable with the insurance company
and that would let us bring our two huge dogs with us on a short term
lease. I had planned to do some structural work to our new house over
the next year and the flooding had forced my hand. I had to complete it
all before the insurance company did their new decoration. I had been
headhunted from my company by a rival and left under a cloud only last
week so I was currently out of work and had no company car so traveling
to my own house required three trains and a long bike ride. The
insurers had decided they wouldn't rewire the house after all but that
it was still unsafe to live in and handed me a quote for four thousand
pounds to do the work they had said would happen automatically. (When I
pointed out that they hadn't mentioned the dangerous wiring when they
surveyed the place a few month previously, they said that it wasn't on
their list of 'things to check' but, as this was a flood claim, it was
now.)
Yes, that was it, I was stressed. I decided to make every effort to
relax as soon as I got out of bed.
The house backed onto a large lake so I decided that the best thing to
do in the circumstances was go fishing. After a breakfast of only a cup
of tea I clambered over the small wooden fence at the bottom of the
garden and sat at the water's edge to 'chill' my pains away.
It didn't work for two reasons. Firstly I had a terrible day's fishing,
catching nothing and at one point having to scramble over muddy banks
to release a lure I had cast into a very thorny tree. The second reason
is that I now know it had nothing to do with stress so even if I had
landed a mermaid masseuse carrying a suitcase full of dope it wouldn't
have helped my stomach. By three o'clock I was cold, miserable, covered
in mud and maggots, bleeding from the various scratches the thorny tree
had left me with and in a large amount of pain. It had got
progressively worse over the last few hours and something had to be
done.
I dragged my tackle through the muddy bank and tried to lift it, and my
now screaming body, over the fence. The dogs, always happy to see me
and deciding I was in a playful mood, jumped up and knocked me back
over. Trying to explain anything to these sods is pointless at the best
of times. German shepherds are meant to be the most intelligent breed
of dog but these are more like goldfish in motorized costumes so I
usually have to just shout at them if I want an immediate reaction and
train them later. Shouting was beyond me. After three attempts to get
over the three foot fence while politely but sternly refusing the dogs'
invitations to join in their mud wrestling, I finally managed to get to
the house making a solemn promise to the furry meatheads that if I
survived, they wouldn't.
Sarah was upstairs, I was leaning on anything I could reach in a style
that must have looked like 'Marlon Brando suffering angst' meets
'recently tackled Italian footballer' I staggered from door frame to
mantle to door frame trying to decide what to do.
I knew I needed a doctor but in what way? Do I call one out to the
house? Do I go to a clinic? Do I have to use my own doctor because, now
I think about it, I don't have one. Last time I went to a doctor I just
saw whoever was available at the clinic nearest to our own house. I
didn't even know if there was one near this house let alone if it was
open on a Saturday. The pain seemed to increase with my awareness that
I was utterly useless in a crisis.
I was now down on my hands and knees and trying anything I could think
of to ease the pain from rubbing my back to breathing exercises. I had
to think fast, I toyed with the idea of dialing 999 but visions of the
ambulance tearing past several car crash victims by the side of the
road as they tried to waive it down with bleeding stumps, stopped
me....
"Excuse me madam, if you wouldn't mind waiting there on the bonnet I'm
sure there'll be another ambulance along soon. You've probably got a
good three or four minutes before the fire catches up to you anyway and
your friend seems to have landed well clear of the danger, I've got to
go and see to some soft bloke with an upset tummy now... good
luck"
.....No, no, keep things in perspective... Ouch... then it came to me,
we had been tearing sheets out of the Yellow Pages to start the fire in
this new house as it was the only source of heat. I could look up
'Doctors', or was that a stupid idea? Well it was worth a try. I
scrabbled my way to the front room on hands and knees and took the
mighty tome that is the London Yellow Pages from beside the fire. I
started to flick through the pages too quickly as the pain forced me to
panic.... dentists, detective agencies... double glazing. Passed it, I
went back again... detective agencies, double glazing! Wait a minute,
they were on facing pages. I looked at the spine of the book where they
met and saw a tiny ridge where a dozen or so pages had been ripped out.
I slowly banged my head on the floor in disbelief. I had randomly
removed and burnt the only pages I needed out of the fifty million in
this eight inch thick book. Why couldn't I have torn out something a
bit less useful like 'Naval Architects' or 'Taxidermists'?, (then
again, my current feelings towards the dogs might make the latter my
first port of call when all this was over).
Sarah came down stairs and saw me on the floor, whimpering. I must have
looked like the new convict who dropped the soap. I flicked through to
'Clinics', I found it and scanned the pages with increasing despair.
These weren't the kind of clinics I had in mind and as the idea of
larger breasts didn't appeal and my only 'erection' problem was that I
couldn't stand up straight. I threw the book on the fire in disgust. I
was desperate now and deaf with pain and panic to whatever Sarah was
saying. I lurched across to the phone and dialed directory
enquiries,
" Directory enquiries which name please"
" Doctor"
" Doctor who?"
(no time for 'once-in-a-lifetime' gags) "Any doctor"
"What area"
"Stomach pain... Sorry..., er Wraysbury"
"How do you sp-"
"W-r-a-y-s-b-u-r-y!"
"Sorry, W-a-
"W-RRRRR-A-Y-S-B-U-R-Y!" The pain twisted a notch further when I spoke
and I cursed myself for not moving to Hull.
"Looking for you now sir" she put me on hold. I knew she might just
have sensed a tone of dissatisfaction in my voice and imagined her
reaching for her fags. I actually drummed my fingers on the floor
impatiently, Laurel and Hardy style.
"I have a number for a national call out service, would you like that
sir?"
"Oh God yes!" Suddenly I wanted to kiss her.
The line switched to the computerized voice that B.T decided would be
more cost effective than having to train all the operators in 'number
speaking management'. I desperately tried to remember the number and
repeated it out loud as I redialed. It started to ring.
I thanked the Lord that someone had the foresight to set up a service
like this. Alright, I might have to pay for it but I would gladly hand
over the keys to my house and offer oral relief to whoever turned up at
the door wearing a white coat, I needed someone NOW.
The recorded message started with "Thank you for calling the national
call out service, we are sorry but our offices are open from-" I
slammed the phone down with a scream that combined agony and
frustration, "BASTARDS!"
The dogs out in the yard stopped their mud wrestling. The geese on the
lake stopped in mid honk. The fish in the lake (assuming that they
exist) stopped swimming. All was quiet save for the slight fizzing
sound from the spittle in the corners of my mouth and I heard what
Sarah had been trying to say for about five minutes.
"Lets get you to the hospital"
The decision had been made for me, I dragged myself to my feet and
limped after her to the car, clutching my guts and groaning all the
time.
So there we were on the way to 'A&;E'. How would I be received? It
was getting to me that I was in danger of wasting the valuable
resources of our threadbare national health service. This ailment might
be nothing more than proof that I was a soft arsehole with a pain
threshold lower than someone who feints at the thought of a
haircut.
Going to hospital was a major thing to do and it would be no good, if
they just laughed at me, pointing at Sarah and saying, "It was her
idea, you know what women are like. Panic at the slightest thing". It
would be full of genuinely needy people who have been waiting hours to
be seen and I knew there was a priority policy there where the most
needy get seen ahead of those more able bodied. From the outside I
looked normal and I couldn't imagine my stomach clutching and groaning
would hold much sway with some hard faced receptionist when there was a
ten year old boy with a spike sticking out of his head in the queue
behind me. I got the dark feeling that I was in for a long day and
night waiting in invisible agony. Somebody would probably get round to
taking a urine sample or something and then I would have to wait for my
'results', curled up in a pitiful ball on those torn plastic benches. I
would have to watch a steady stream of car crash victims and careless
rugby players slowly change into drunken Saturday night yobs with
kicked in heads and overdosed homeless kids. The problem was that I
knew I didn't have that kind of time left in me before I started
screaming for attention and reminding people how much tax I pay and how
long I had been waiting.
We sped along at a great rate of knots, I envisaged being pulled over
by the police and Sarah trying to convince them they had woken up that
morning in a parallel universe and that my waters were about to break.
Long shot? I think so, but I would have tried it all the same. Every
bump we went over, every breath of wind we drove into seemed like it
was directly linked to an electrical cord in my belly like one of those
wiggle wire machines at the funfair. I wouldn't have been surprised if
my nose wasn't lighting up every time I got a twinge and the back seat
was stuffed with cuddly toys that nobody was ever going to win.
We arrived at the hospital and Sarah pulled up outside A&;E. I
stumbled out of the car and she went off to park. I staggered through
the doors, determined to look in as much pain as I actually was. I
couldn't stand upright and had to support my weight on whatever came to
hand. I looked around the room, there were several rows of benches with
various injured people and their helpers totaling about eighteen
people, not bad for a Saturday afternoon but still to many to wait for.
They looked me up and down making instant diagnoses and assessing
whether they were worse off than me. I looked to the right and saw the
reception desk. There were several windows, only one of which was
manned by a thick set lady who wasn't in a nurse's uniform and looked
like she should have been chief librarian for the Third Reich. Ahead of
me were four people, probably two couples who looked as well as any
normal person could be expected to look. I quickly started to feel
agitated, they were probably just asking after someone who had been
there for ages. They probably had a teenage-waste-of-time for a son
called Darren or Lee who had worn a blister on his thumb from too much
Playstation and hadn't had his pillows fluffed in ten minutes...
"'E gets upset if you don't make 'im comfy, regular like. 'E's very
sensitive"
My heart sank as I stooped at the back of the line, resting against the
shelf and looking decidedly unhappy. Within ten seconds of being in
line a woman came from nowhere and beckoned me to another window, I was
impressed. I staggered across very slowly to show it was worth opening
a new window for me and leant into the little glass opening as she sat
at a computer and started to fire questions at me like a machine gun. I
was ready to give the most efficient answers I could to keep the pain
of speaking to an absolute minimum.
"Name?"
"Ian Watson, Ian spelt I-a-n"
"Date of birth?"
"17th, second, seventy" I was getting the answers out before she
finished asking.
"Address?"
"Current address is 73 Bishops rd Wraysbury, Spelt w-R-a-y-s-b-u-r-y,
but my PERMANENT address, which you have on record, is in Byfleet" I
was teaching this lady a lesson in information delivery she would never
forget and I was sure she was impressed as she banged the details into
the computer without the need to confirm anything. I felt there was a
mutual respect building here, she knew I was no ordinary clumsy
arsehole who didn't know his own name and was there because he'd
accidentally forgotten to turn the electricity off before stripping
wires with is teeth. She knew I was an intelligent person who was not
to be messed with and needed some serious attention.
"National insurance number?" She turned her eyes away from the computer
screen for the first time and looked at me as if to say, "well, we've
done very well but nobody remembers their national insurance number so
don't be embarrassed, we all do it"
"NS 83 18 31 J" I couldn't help a little smirk as her eyes leapt back
to the screen, while she tried to remember the number, as asking me to
repeat it would mean defeat. I had her beaten and it felt good.
"Name of GP?"
(Bollocks!)
"Err... I... Err......, Well I don't have one as far as I know, I saw
someone in West Byfleet Clinic a few months back..." I was sinking
fast. I clutched my guts for a little sympathy while I stalled but it
was no good, she had found my Achilles heel.