The thing about being rushed to hospital is this:
you always imagine it’ll be dramatic.
Blue lights.
Sirens.
A stretcher.
A handsome paramedic called Gareth telling you to “stay with me.”
Instead, reality gave me something entirely different.
After the first ECG at the GP surgery that morning —
the one that made the doctor look at me like I’d just handed him a live grenade —
he said that given the TIA‑s shown on the CT scan — and yes, he definitely emphasised the S — and the ECG results, I needed to go straight to the hospital.
And in my head, I was shouting:
“Do not pass Go, and you most definitely do NOT collect £200!”
Why?
I’ve no idea.
Probably the way he’d said it — that firm, clipped tone that makes you feel like you’ve accidentally broken a rule you didn’t know existed.
And before I could even process any of that, my husband stepped forward and said,
“I’ll take her straight there.”
Which would have been perfectly normal…
if he hadn’t been standing there in his full funeral‑director stripes — head to toe, bar the hat and cane.
Honestly, you couldn’t make it up.
There I was, being told I needed urgent hospital attention, and beside me stood a man dressed like he was ready to personally officiate my departure.
If there was ever a moment to reassure a doctor that you’re not about to die, that was not the outfit for it.
So no — I didn’t come in like a wrecking ball.
If Miley Cyrus had seen my entrance, she’d have asked for her song back.
Mine was more “middle‑aged, confused housewife who’s taken a wrong turn between the laundry basket and the front door.”
By the time we reached the hospital, I’d barely processed anything.
What even were TIAs — and why was there more than one?
He’d definitely hit the S like it was bolded.
They told me my CT scan had shown “a few changes” that needed an MRI —
but probably nothing to worry about.
Which is exactly the kind of sentence that guarantees you’ll worry about it.
The waiting room smelled…
a combined aroma of body odour and Dettol —
the kind of scent that hits you in the back of the throat and makes you question every life choice that led you there.
Then they hooked me up again for the second ECG —
more wires, more stickers (refusing to stick again), and more people frowning at the screens without saying anything remotely reassuring.
Then came the moment someone finally stopped, looked at me properly, and said:
“You’ve clearly been struggling for some time.”
And suddenly, the whole room shifted.
I was whisked off for an X‑ray, bloods taken, obs done —
because of course they’re going to read perfectly normal —
and then placed in a chair to wait for whatever came next.
And then it happened.
The moment I officially made it into the old people’s club.
Not the cardiac monitor.
Not the wires.
Not the beeping.
No.
It was when a nurse handed me a dispersible aspirin
and followed it up with
two sprays of GTN under the tongue.
That was the initiation ceremony.
That was the “welcome to the club, love” handshake.
Eventually — after they’d sucked the life out of me with constant bloods, endless questions, and twenty‑four hours of being strapped to a cardiac monitor — they told me to “just relax.”
Which is hilarious, given the circumstances.
I’d been wired up like a budget Christmas tree, beeped at every time I moved, and watched by machines that seemed far more invested in my survival than I was.
Relaxing was not on the menu.
But that was the moment it hit me.
Not the ECGs.
Not the X‑ray.
Not the obs.
It was the relentlessness of it — the poking, the prodding, the monitoring, the waiting — that finally made me realise:
“This wasn’t a blip.
This wasn’t stress.
This was something bigger.
So no, I didn’t come in like a wrecking ball —
but by the end of it, it certainly felt like one had come crashing through my week.”