“I’m here to take your blood”, said the male nurse. “Well, if that’s your thing” I replied with a smile, which was reciprocated and followed by a perky “sharp scratch!”. In went the needle.

It was the early morning hours of Wednesday 19th October 2022, and I was sitting in a padded armchair in a cubicle formed by those familiar blue concertina curtains, somewhere in the depths of the the A&E department of North Middlesex University Hospital. I went in on the afternoon of the previous day, as on the Monday I had a weird, ‘dull’ abdominal pain which at some point became very sharp for a few minutes, before subsiding to its dullness again. It had me bent almost to the fetal position. My bet was on appendicitis. Or stones. Truth is, I wasn’t sure what it was. So after a few fruitless 111 calls – I was hoping to avoid the A&E waiting times – and given that the pain was present on Tuesday, I left work earlier in the afternoon and made my way to the A&E.

I already had bloods taken earlier on Tuesday evening, which indicated very low levels of haemoglobin. So low, in fact, that when I was called to see the doctor, they double and triple checked my details. “I want to make sure I have the right patient. Can you walk? Are you out of breath? Have you been bleeding?”. To which I replied that I feel fine, “it’s just that I have this pain, here”. I was sent to wait at the back, to be seen by a surgeon. “It could be appendicitis, but it wouldn’t explain you being anaemic. Best to do a CT scan to confirm. Also, we can’t let you go with such low levels of haemoglobin”. The appendicitis part wasn’t too convincing.

In the meantime, I was chatting with my wife, Vas, on whatsapp, and keeping her up to date. It was already 10pm, and it felt that there wasn’t a remote whiff of an answer to why I was in pain (or anaemic). The Ian Fleming inside me felt that the “could be appendicitis” statement was a red herring. And the only whiff was the one in the waiting room which wasn’t all too pleasant. Most annoyingly, the vending machines were empty.

After about half an hour of waiting on a bench (or was it a chair?) in a corridor, a surgeon came to see me. He had this air of curiosity about him. A kind of “what have we got here?!” demeanor, but it was genuine and full of interest. Which confirmed that the appendicitis non-diagnosis was a red herring indeed. He felt my abdomen after asking me if I feel tired and if I had been bleeding. I replied that I work full time and I have two kids, so I am always tired. “No, I have not been bleeding as far as I know”. “Let’s do a CT scan before we operate” he says. Alright then. Let’s. I asked for another blood test. You know. Just in case. “That’s a good shout” said the surgeon. “You never know, and you seem pretty well for someone with haemoglobin of 62”. The normal levels of haemoglobin in the UK lie between 130-180 grams per liter. Even while asking for a second, confirmatory blood test, I had a flashback of me nearly fainting at the barber’s a few months back, in the summer. But that was the heat, right? Right?!

So that led to me sitting in the aforementioned cubicle, in the treatment area of the A&E department, opposite sit 2. A hospital tag was added to my wrist with name, surname and date of birth printed on it. My wife was making her way to the hospital to get me the hospital essentials. You know. An ipad, magazines, snacks etc. I was so happy to see her. Then after some time the bloods came back confirming the previous levels, and by 4:30am I was tagged and given a bed at “surgical ward 2”.

I was fine, and happy that whatever this was at least I was at the right place. However, in the back of my mind, a thought made an entrance. I promptly shut it up and pushed it further back, while concentrating on what to binge-watch and which snack to start this feast with. The thought was that this felt like the beginning of something.