[2] Shutdown

[1] The Day I knew I Would Die

[2] Shutdown

I must have mumbled something to Jenny who sat diagonally across from me. I was now lying flat on my back with my legs up on a desk in one of the empty side offices. She was on the phone, casting a furtive eye over me on my deathbed every few seconds.

‘They want to talk to you…’ she passed the phone to me, but I couldn’t hold it properly because my fingers were still fat and clumsy.

‘Hello?’

‘Andrew, this is Sharon from NHS 111’.

Oh Jesus, I thought, Jenny’s called NHS 111, the non-emergency number you phone when you’re not dying. That was no good for me - I was dying. I needed a whole lot more than a non-emergency number for people who aren’t going to snuff it any moment.

In fact, I was convinced that by the time even the most rapid emergency response team arrived I would be long gone; remembered only in fable-form as Andrew, the guy who croaked in the abandoned side office one February morning. I had decided I didn’t need medical attention. I was beyond saving, and I was resigned to dying at the hands of the terrifying executioner.

Except I couldn’t die. Not in peace anyway. Sharon was still wittering on in my ear. Even though I couldn’t feel the phone in my hand because my whole arm had gone numb, I could still hear Sharon wittering away;

‘Headache?’

‘Yes’

‘Pins and needles in your arms?’

‘Yes’

The questions kept coming and all my answers were ‘Yes’. What was wrong with this woman? I felt like stopping her and telling her not to bother.

‘Everything hurts. Nothing is working properly. I am convinced I’m going to die’.

But the checklist went on and finally I answered the question which sealed my fate.

‘Any heart palpitations? Are you suffering from a tight chest?’

I said yes. Because I was. Sharon swung in to action, and I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to quietly die in the face of this all-consuming fear.

I was to be at the nearest hospital Accident & Emergency department within fifteen minutes. Did I know where that was? Was I able to get there in that time? If not, Sharon would call an ambulance.

I didn’t know whether the legs I could see propped on the desk belonged to me or someone else, let alone where the nearest hospital was or how I would get there. I did know I was right about only having moments to live, though; no-one is told they absolutely must be at a hospital within fifteen minutes unless they’re about to kick the bucket.

Jenny helped me down the stairs, and I smelt the awful smell that came from the five thousand pound coffee machine in the office kitchen. I loved coffee, but today it almost made me throw up.

We barrelled in to the opulent reception area and through the big glass front door. The whole journey played out like one of those slow-motion-no-sound scenes that come after something terrible happens in a movie. Exactly like that.

The cold air hit me like a train and everything got a hundred times worse out in the car park; my burning face was now scalding my whole head, my eyes were just spinning round and round in opposite directions and were going to detach from their stalks at any minute, and my poor little heart was pounding an awful, booming rhythm in my chest like some kind of evil death-drum.

I clung on for dear life, trying to stay upright, which is difficult when you can’t feel what belongs to you and what doesn’t. I sucked at the cold February air, my heart went faster and faster, my eyes span quicker and quicker. And then I remember nothing. I wasn’t unconscious, I didn’t faint, but my mind shut down, followed quickly by my whole body, and everything went black.

[3] Not Dying, Apparently