Being Outed: The Birth of Tinman, Part 3

At six a.m on August 15th, 2007, it was raining.

I had quite an important meeting organised for that afternoon, so was dressed slightly better than usual for work. I looked out the window during breakfast, decided I didn’t fancy getting these clothes wet, and opted to drive the whole way into the office.

The only way in which driving right into the very heart of Dublin is ever an option is to be there before seven a.m., so I rocketed along the M50 at astonishing speeds (in the aforementioned rain) and duly arrived at 6.55. Now I know that I could, of course, have blacked out at 120kph on the Motorway, but at the time they were still happening infrequently enough to not loom large in my mind.

That was the last time I drove for seven months.

At about 10.30 I was walking back from the kitchen in the office with a mug of tea and a glass of water. About ten feet from my desk I felt the now familiar draining begin. Desperate that no-one see me fall, I put the water on a printer and then knelt down, hoping I could fight it off. I then, rather amazingly, placed my tea on the carpet a few feet away from me, so that when I did black out and topple over, as of course had always been inevitable, I did as little damage as possible.

I was comprehensively outed, though, especially as MyAgeGirl saw me fall and apparently ran round yelling “CPR! CPR!”. When I came round I opened my eyes, saw about twenty people around me, and closed them tight. “Crap, I’m at work, aren’t I?” I muttered.

“You are,” I heard The Overlord say. I opened my eyes again, sat up at looked at everyone. “Well, this is embarrassing,” I said.

“Do you need CPR?” asked The Overlord. “Dunno,” I said, “can I pick who I get it from?”

He just stared at me for a second. “You’re feeling better, I take it,” he said drily.

And I was. So I got up, went back to my desk, assured everyone that I was fine, didn’t need to go home, was seeking treatment, etc. People came and suggested possible causes, everything from Epilepsy (my own vote at the time), to Multiple Sclerosis(?).

And the morning drifted on. People still suggested I should go home, but I couldn’t, because GoldenEyes and I still had this meeting with a guy over from the UK later that afternoon.

Neither of us ever got there. At 12.15 the fire alarm sounded in the building. A restaurant was being fitted-out on the ground floor at the time, and the oxy-actylene torches would set the alarm off about three times a week. We all grumbled, got-up, and all five floors – about 400 people – trooped down the stairs and gathered outside in the Millennium Walkway.

And that was when I felt it again. I leaned back against the wall, said to GoldenEyes “I feel terrible,” and before she could do anything, I fell face forward onto the concrete. My forehead and right eye swelled straight up like a balloon, and though I came round almost immediately, someone from one of the other companies on another floor had already rung for an ambulance.

It was agreed that GE would come with me, and off we headed for the Mater Hospital.

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Will they find out what’s wrong? What’s A&E in the Mater like on a Wednesday afternoon? Find out in Part 4 – “Bedless in Bedlam”.