Liveline: Thread with no name, Host with no shame

One time I turned up to the Beacon ED with persistent central chest pain and dizziness. There was a triage nurse there who would look at ya, ask about two questions and tell you to sit back out in waiting area. I had the pain since having an argument with my psycho boss the evening before, and getting weather than better. The triage nurse seemed really bored.

Waited, then called in for bloods, though I was getting dizzier I was turfed from trolley to a chair, where my sight was fading, and I had to keep my head well down to stop passing out. Eventually wheeled up to cardiac and put in a waiting area for half an hour until a nurse called me into a side room. Blacked out in the side room, thought I was dying and it was honestly very pleasant as the pain had gone and I just saw a white light, the tunnel they tell you about. Next moment I was being slapped on the face and instructed to talk. I couldn’t speak but could now hear them and my vision started coming back. The nurse was shouting for help.

A nurse and a doctor arrived. Oxygen mask put on and medication given, and asked to respond to them. Now I could respond. The doctor told me I was having a heart attack, the blood showed very high troponin from my heart muscle and that this was a serious event. They kept on talking to me to assess alertness. 20 minutes later the consultant came in and explained again very calmly that I was having a heart attack, and would be in the cath lab within half an hour.

He performed the angiogram and told me the good news that my heart vessels were actually very good, but that my left ventricle was in failure due to a neurogenic attack, the tiniest capillaries had shut down, causing the symptoms. Was given medication, kept in the cardiac unit a couple of nights, and told I should make a full recovery, which I did. Turned out to be part of the MS at play.

But of course the triage nurse always seems to be the most bored staff member in any hospital, and wonders why people turn up at all. A work colleague was driven to A&E by her husband with chest pain, as she said in her 60s and obese. Triage nurse, as usual, showed no interest, and had her sitting in a chair hours before even a blood test was taken. Thankfully turned out not to be anything serious, but the nurse couldn’t know that before some preliminary tests were taken. Chest pain is supposed to be a red flag unless it can be initially proved to be superficial like costochondritis, a simple bit of finger pressure on breastbone will reveal that.

Only my own shtuff on me profile so to speak, enough material in that.

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You mean Scruffy? LOL Sligojoek was a personal friend of mine, he and his lovely brother often communicated with me as a pair from all over the country, sharing lovely happy things. A very warm hearted family. Sligojoek was a good friend to me, not many like him. His family are equally lovely. I shed ma y tears when he got sick and died.

What did I disclose about his bro? A harmless hand condition that was a nuisance and no more than that. Just demonstrating I had heard of this nuisance condition very specifically before, and a context where it interrupted certain things, at least temporarily. It was hardly disclosing an intimate condition 🙄

I asked ChatGPT to display his broadcasting amid equipment with signs of death and vultures around,