"31 year old male, ? Stroke, numbness in left arm, stars in eyes"
I have to admit reading that on the screen made a fine spray of vanilla latte spray onto my paperwork. In fact, so much so that I had to start a fresh PRF! Stars in eyes made me think of Matthew Kelly introducing a badly ageing man doing his best to look like Tom Jones and singing "Sex Bomb" as he comes out of a cloud of stage smoke! Not a good mental image! We headed round to the address not expecting much from the job. I doubted very much that a 31 year old was having a stroke, but as always I kept a semi-open mind until I arrived! Because it was early in the morning on a Sunday, and as we were less than a mile away, we were on scene within 2 minutes of him dialling 999. In fact, he was still on the phone when we arrived.
We got past the usual pleasantries of 'I can't believe how quick you came' (*snigger* "you wish") & 'wow, that was fast', and by that exchange I was happy that a) he wasn't having a stroke b) he wasn't remotely ill. I'm no doctor but it didn't take much to work out what was wrong!
"So what's been going on today?"
"Firstly my arm was numb, like completely numb, with tingling all over my hand and fingers"
"What were you doing when this started"
"Nothing"
"Where were you?"
"In bed"
"Had you been sleeping?"
"Yes"
"What side do you sleep on?"
"Of the bed?"
"No, do you sleep on you left side, right side or back?"
"My left side"
"So you woke up lying on your left side, your arm was numb and you had pins and needles in your hand?"
"Yes"
"How is it now?"
"It's gone now"
"Did you have any other symptoms?"
"Yes..." (he didn't expand without a prompt)
"What were they?"
"I saw stars in my eyes"
"When did that happen?"
"As soon as I stood up from bed I felt dizzy and there were stars in my eyes"
"And are they gone now?"
"Yes"
"So what did you want us to do?"
"I'm not sure, I had a numb arm and stars in my eyes so thought I was having a stroke, am I?"
"No"
"What do you think caused it?"
"At a guess, you had pins and needles in your arm because you slept on it and felt dizzy because you stood up suddenly. Did you look at a light before you stood up?"
"Actually yes, my wife turned the light on, do I need to go to hospital?"
"No"
I'm not Doctor Gregory House, Head of the Department of Diagnostic Medicine, but this was pretty cut and dry as far as I was concerned. Surely in 31 years he had experienced pins and needles!? He must have! Maybe I'm wrong, do people never feel slightly dizzy after standing suddenly? Do they not see the light burnt on their retina after looking at a light bulb?! I do! Do people really call an ambulance the second they feel a symptom of any kind?! Do they not wait even 2 minutes to see if it goes away?! Clearly not! We have all seen the stroke advert on TV, the droopy face, the paralysed arm and the slurred speech, but I'm sure it doesn't say call 999 if you have pins and needles followed by a 10 second head rush!? This is what we are up against people! This is one of the many 999 calls we attend to; people really do call for this! How do we stop them?! Answers on a postcard! Needless to say, we left him at home with all the information he needed on strokes so not to call again unnecessarily! I really do despair sometimes, a lot of people don't believe some of the things people call us for but that is because they judge things by their normal standards! You need a whole new set of standards to understand the mind-sets of some people! That is how I stay calm when faced with utter stupidity!