You may – or, more likely, may not – remember that I spent six hours in A&E last September due to passing out twice, hitting my head, tearing/straining a jaw ligament, having a seizure, etc. Those six hours were among the worst of my life. A doctor laughed at me. The receptionist sent us somewhere we weren’t meant to be and then told us off for going there. The other receptionists stood gossiping and ignoring us while I sat in my wheelchair throwing up and being held in so I wouldn’t fall out with the dizziness. The triage nurse was an a******. They all assumed, without basis, that I was drunk.

I vowed never to return to A&E; I’d rather lie on my bedroom floor and die. So, last Tuesday – December 23 – I ventured back to A&E. Not entirely by choice. So here’s my whine story:

For the past 8-10 weeks, I’ve been fairly unwell: weak; dizzy; easily exhausted; I lost 7kg in about 5 of those weeks; I’d wake up with the room spinning and my heart hammering. So after a few weeks of feeling back to normal, last Monday night I woke up with my heart fluttering as though I were nervous about something. I went to the bathroom only to find myself becoming light-headed and tunnel vision creeping in. After discovering that splashing cold water on myself didn’t work, I lay down on the (very cold) floor so that I wouldn’t hit my head this time when I passed out. Luckily, doing so caused all the unpleasant feelings to abate.

The next day I went to the doctor. She decided, after an ECG, that I should go to A&E. I considered not going, but the feelings of the previous night were just the feelings that I’d hoped to avoid by never going to a hospital again, so there didn’t seem much point if it would only happen again.

This time, I had to go to the hospital in Letterkenny, Ireland, because I live in the Republic and therefore am not covered by the NHS even with my UK passport. Ireland’s healthcare is similar to America’s – though not quite so bad – in that you pay through your teeth for everything (including a €100 fee for needing A&E). But thankfully, a few days earlier, my medical card had arrived, meaning that I wouldn’t have to pay.

Letterkenny turned out to be vastly more pleasant – if that term can possibly be used for a hospital visit – than the A&E in Altnagelvin, Derry. The doctors and nurses seemed to care about me and even treated me as though I actually existed! Though the entire thing turned out to last six hours, just like the first time round, it didn’t feel like it. Several nurses asked me questions throughout the wait, and took my blood pressure, and even turned on the TV for us and came around with tea and biscuits. Unfortunately, one also took my blood. That resulted in me lying on a bed with an oxygen mask, shaking violently all over.

Sadly, what they didn’t do was diagnose what’s wrong. Another ECG showed nothing (the GP’s reading, which said something about an anomaly, went missing somewhere between the reception and the triage nurse), the chest x-ray showed nothing, my blood showed nothing (except that my potassium is back to normal). The doctor wondered if it might be TB for a while, but she must have ruled that out because she never mentioned it again.

So, after six hours and another blood-related ordeal, I was given the choice of being kept in over Christmas with a heart monitor, or coming back some time after Christmas to be fitted with one for 48 hours. I chose the latter.

And that is the story of why I’m no longer allowed tea or coffee.