Two Forty Over One Twenty

I am still sucking air.  This is a good thing.

On Thursday night I stopped being able to suck air.  This was a bad thing.

One am and I went upstairs to bed.  Until this point I had been feeling absolutely fine.  No signs of impending doom.  And the stairs I climbed were not like the north face of the Eiger.  They were just like the stairs you climb to your bed.  Fourteen of them, rising eight or so inches per riser.  For someone who is thirty-eight and a bit, this is not something you or I would break a sweat over.

I performed my regular nightly ritual of reclaiming the duvet from Mrs Gerbil, lay down and stopped breathing.

fuck.

I had absolutely no will to breathe on my own.  I really had to force myself to suck air in.  I realised that sleeping at this time may have some pretty bad consequences. 

I sat up.  Going downstairs, breathing returned to something approaching normal, especially when sitting down.  I sat for ten minutes or so, then returned up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, lay down and couldn't breathe again.  Imagine the feeling of being tickled to the point of being unable to breathe, without the enjoyable wrestling beforehand.  I just wasn't prepared to suck air without a pretty concerted effort on my part.

So that's the point that I woke Mrs G up.

Then we phoned the NHS. for a bit of advice.


They sent an ambulance, without me even asking for one.

And then two student ambulance workers saw some numbers on my blood pressure reading that made them wince.  The ambulance that had three on board when it arrived, left with four.

I arrived in casualty, was poked and prodded, before being relocated round the corner to "Somewhere Better." "Somewhere Better" turned out to be Resuscitation, where the wall behind me was adorned with the sort of medical kit that only gets used on you if the shit has seriously hit your fan.  They wouldn't even let me walk there, in fact the two nurses seemed to go a little pale when I made the suggestion.

The rest of the night was spent with my feet hanging off the end of an A&E trolley, wired to a machine that took a hissy fit every time an electrode fell from my chest.  Medical tape just does not stick to my skin, except where there is hair, then it sticks better than Evo-stik and removes hair better than waxing.

In the morning I was moved to "Somewhere Better", which turned out to be the Cardiac unit.  Amongst many questions, I was asked my mobile phone number (07777 777777) My wifes mobile number (07777 666666) and my Doctor ("They never gave me their mobile number..." "No Sir, just the name of the doctors surgery."   "Oh...  Sorry... "  (I'm not at my sharpest at that time.)  Best question of all, "Have your bowels moved recently?"  What's the answer to that?  "Yes, but they left a forwarding address..."

So for the rest of the day I was poked and prodded.  I have seen my heart on ultrasound.  I have met the hospital chaplain, and we talked pastoral care.  I even met Mrs G's new supervisor who was in visiting.

So it turns out I have blood pressure that is high enough to be measured in pounds per square inch.  240 over 120.  I now have some drugs to take, and a letter that is to go to my GP.  And they still don't know if the breathing thing is related.  Yet had it not been for the breathing problems, I wouldn't have known about the blood pressure.

While I am a little overweight, I never feel unwell.  No headaches, no strange symptoms.  Nothing.  So that is why you need to get your blood pressure checked this week.