Chair 20

“We’d like to send you an ambulance, but if you are able, it may be quicker for you to make your own way to A&E.”

Well. Alright. Erm. Fuck.

I guess I’m going to hospital?

It was 10:30am on Monday morning. I had gotten up and walked Nala, been to the gym and logged into work. Not the actions of a man who considered himself to need urgent medical care…

I’d been getting headaches in the gym for a few days, on Monday morning there was also a teeny bit of dizziness and a smidgen of blurred vision, but I figured it was probably nothing.

I don’t know how modern medicine works outside of the confines of my own GP practice. In my world, to speak with a GP you first have to fill in what is called a PATCHS form. The Doctors then triage those and people are called in order for ailment. I’d imagine it’s some sort of scale ranging from ‘risk of imminent death’ to “Mr Barnes has forgotten to turn his hearing aid on again’.

I followed that process and at the end of the form I was met with a surprising message “PLEASE CALL 111 AS YOU MAY NEED URGENT CARE.”.

Well, I’ve obviously filled the form in wrong I thought to myself. There was an option to submit the form anyway and so I did. Then I googled my symptoms…

I called 111.

Fifteen minutes later, I’d made an apologetic phone call to my manager at work and I was sat alone in the back of an Uber. I’d packed a backpack containing my kindle, a bottle of water and a Huel shake. Eyes wide, ready for my big adventure.

On the way to the hospital, I was consumed by one overwhelming thought. Today is going to fucking suck.

“Hello Mr Furlong, this is the GP Practice, you submitted a PATCHS form, are you able to come in this afternoon?”

“Sorry Doctor, the message at the end told me to call 111 and now I’m on my way to A&E”.

“That’s probably a good idea”.

I arrived at the hospital, checked myself in and put on my stylish new wrist band and then I sat. I was triaged fairly quickly by a lady who declared “we’ll get you seen by one of the GP’s here”.

I could have seen my own fucking GP this afternoon I thought to myself as I thanked her.

When I was seen by the GP, I was given the incredibly reassuring update “I don’t know what’s causing this” and referred on to UMAC (Urgent Medical Assessment Centre, I spent all day staring at the fucking acronym).

It was about 12:30 at this point, I’d already downed the emergency Huel and I was starting to think I’d probably be home in time for tea, which would be lovely.

I made my way up to UMAC and was assigned to my chair. ‘Chair 20’ would become my identity for the rest of Monday. Mr Chair 20. Senior Silla 20. CHAIR TWO ZERO.

It was shit.

After a little bit (or a lot, time got weird) of sitting, I was called in for the bog standard checks they were doing with every patient.

They took my height, I was furious I was still only 5’5, my weight and asked me a bit about my lifestyle. I told them I no longer drink, I’ve recently quit smoking and I’m probably the healthiest I’ve been as an adult. Which is why I’m in hospital.

The guy doing my tests told me his name was Brian and then he would next need to do an ECG. This essentially involves covering you in stickers and attaching wires to you. Pretty harmless fun.

I was informed I’d need to pull my top up so they could attach some of the stickers to my chest. As this happened, about 6 other nurses came in and out of the room. I’ll just lie here, with my nipples out. This is cool.

“We’re gonna have to shave your chest”.

BRIAN!!!

But Brian was unfortunately right, patches of my chest hair were sacrificed. Brian apologised to me while laughing that he’d probably not tell his husband he’d shaved another man’s chest at work.

I was so thankful for that little bit of humour. I ended up learning about Brians and his husband’s adopted twin boys, I shared my own stories about being a twin and we made fun of how difficult it is. For thirty minutes I felt like Tom again.

And then he stuck a needle in my arm to take bloods. Two zero was back…

I read my kindle for a while. I tried desperately hard not to listen to too much of what other people were going through. I noticed I was one of very few people alone.

About four hours later I was seen by another doctor. He told me my bloods were clear, he checked my eyes and he did, in my opinion, an unfair amount of poking and prodding to a man who’s reason for being there was ‘sore head’.

I was told I had no red signals and advised that the most likely culprit was a pesky thing called stress.

However, they wanted me to have a CT scan done to rule out anything more serious.

And with that, I returned to Chair 20.

A little less scared. But I was also finally aware that I had been scared at all.

I spent the next couple of hours in that seat without much incident except for picking the odd ECG sticker out of my chest hair and sharing a chuckle with Brian.

I was fed up. I was finally starting to feel the weight of the day a little and I was desperate to go home.

Then I realised my phone battery was on 10% and I was relying on that to be able to order an Uber home. So I switched my phone off and sat staring at the UMAC sign for a while.

I reflected on the fact that my headaches were down to stress.

What’s causing it? What can I change?

Questions followed by a realisation that my main problem was that I was still putting an absolutely enormous amount of pressure on myself.

I was seeing any of my dogs’ bad behaviour  as a moral failing and a reflection of myself. During a heatwave when your dog is a dick head, that is not good for you.

I was awake at 5am, out with her and immediately stressing about logging into work early m for a job that allows you flexible working hours.

I was going to the gym with a work phone and a sense of leaving a difficult dog with family and rushing through my workout because it all felt a bit much.

And then I was Chair 20.

There were two more long hours before I was finally given the all-clear to leave.

Brian was just starting his third rotation of the sandwich trolley in the time since I’d got there and I walked past with an incredible sense of gratitude toward him. I simply said to him “Brian, I’m free” and thanked him for his care.

My day started with fear - “we’d like to send you an ambulance” will cause a little bit of panic!

But it ended with advice - “you’re carrying a lot of stress. We’d recommend you get a proper head massage and work on your calming techniques.”

I arrived home exhausted, emotionally fragile and delighted to see my fucking dog.

I’ve learned a lot about myself since Monday. Becoming Chair 20 has had a profound impact on me.

But that perhaps, is a story for another time.

For now I’d just like to say that I’m grateful for my health. I’m grateful to the NHS staff who despite working in increasingly difficult environments still had the time and patience to make me feel like a human when I needed them.

I’m absolutely fucking delighted to be “Tom” again.