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As soon as they got the blood results with the high troponin reading they said I needed a chest X-ray, an echocardiogram, and an angiography, so I would be going to the cardiac ward.
I was put on a trolley and wheeled to the acute medical ward, put into a fancy bed and, with the aid of 10 stick on sensors, each with it's own wire, hooked up to a monitor that went Beep Boop every 20 seconds.
Basically, that was that. Night time came around, they found me a decent meal, gave me a load of tablets and an injection in my belly and left me, the wires, and the Beep Boop machine to try to get some sleep.
I managed to nod off at around 5am and they woke me at 6am with a cheery smile, a load of pills and an injection in my belly. Then they took my breakfast, lunch and dinner order and left, fending off my questions with, "The doctors will be on the ward at 10 or 11."
A doctor did come. He looked at my notes, uh hu'd and was about to leave when I asked him what was going on. He told me not to worry and that everything was being taken care of.
And so it went on, FOR ANOTHER THREE DAYS. The pills, the injections, the food orders, the cheery nurses, my increasingly anxious questions, the reassuring doctors, the fucking wires and the bastard Beep Boop machine.
At some point on Thursday afternoon (I was admitted on Monday) I kicked off big style and told everyone in earshot what I though. Then I removed all the stickers and wires, (The stickers had been on so long they had caused a reaction and left huge circular welts) and got out of bed.
The Beep Boop machine almost had a fit but it was no match for me. I was raging.
There was a hurried discussion at the nurses station and someone senior was called. He studied my notes for a while and then said to me, "I must apologise Mr McCready, it seems you should have been referred to the cardiac ward, but someone has dropped the ball and forgotten to do it."
If that was meant to calm me down it didn't work. I was so mad I'm surprised I didn't have another heart attack on the spot.
The upshot was that I was put into an ambulance that same night and taken to Coventry hospital.
The next day they did the angiography and fitted a stent, then, after a day of observation and with their apologies still ringing in my ears I was sent home.
"What about the echocardiogram" I asked.
"Oh, we've referred you back to The George Elliot for that, they will do it when you go to see the rehabilitation nurses in a few days."
A few days later I saw one of the rehabilitation nurses, and extremely nice and efficient she was too.
When she had finished telling me what I could and couldn't do in the coming months I asked her about the echocardiogram.
"Haven't you had that yet?"
"No, they said they would refer me back here to have it, look, it says so on my discharge sheet."
"Hang on, I'll go and check it out."
When she came back she told me that they had made me an in-patient referral, and because I was now an out patient it would be ignored.
Not her fault of course but infuriating nonetheless. She did manage to get me re referred as an out-patient, but it will take a few weeks....
Bottom line, I'm home, I'm fine, and the NHS probably saved my life, so fair play to them.
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