After years of false alarms, my trip to A&E was a real emergency writes Matthew Norman
This time, it struck me at 4.30am – the halfway mark of a refreshing five-hour sojourn in A&E – I truly mean it. Admittedly, I’d been equally convinced that I meant it on three vaguely similar occasions in the last couple of years. The ultrasound on the testicular lump (epididymal cyst). The ECG to investigate cardiac arrhythmia (nothing lethal). The gastroscope after years of acid reflux (tiny duodenal polyp). Each time, I believed I meant it when, while striking the cowardly atheist’s classic deal with God, I swore to the deity in whom I unbelieve that, if I could dodge the bullet, a radical metamorphosis would ensue. This time, however, I really, really meant it. The development that took me to the Royal Free, in the smug liberal leftie Shangri-La of Hampstead, was of a type that appeals to the professional hypochondriac more in the abstract, as described on a...
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