It's not often you find yourself hooked up to a heart monitor, wearing an oxygen mask staring up at the lights in the resuscitation area in hospital. But that's where I found myself on Wednesday night, bewildered and somewhat concerned about my health. I don't want to end up there again. Well, not for a long while anyway.

I'll start at the beginning. I played in a Inter Regulatory Body football tournament a week ago last Wednesday. I played in goal as usual. It was a fantastic evening. The football was good and it gave me a chance to catch up with old friends. And we did pretty well. I think our team's average age must have been about 35, which meant we were probably lacking in a bit of youth over the other teams. But we got to the semi finals where we met the GMC. Oh how we wanted to beat them. Even though as a regulatory body the NMC is (we think) the biggest such body in the world, it always seems to me that we sometimes live in the shadow of them. So there was a bit of an edge to the match. So obviously it didn't help that we quickly conceded two tame goals. It was uphill from there, but there was some fight left in us. After conceding a third we got one back, and tried to force our way back into the game. But they caught us on the break. They fired a shot to my left which I dived for and got my fingers to, but unfortunately the ball went in.

But I'd hurt myself. I'd taken a hefty blow to my left hand side, and I remember feeling the judder of pain. But it's a man's game right? So I got up and carried on, and the score finished at 4-1. But the pain didn't go away. I put that down to either muscular damage or a cracked rib. Over the next few days it seemed to get worse. But the worrying thing was that it felt worse when I was walking. Then last wednesday, I walked my usual 10-15 minutes to the tube, and I was struggling for breath. And it didn't stop when I got on the tube. In fact, I only felt better after I'd been at work for a few minutes.

So it was with a certain sense of trepidation that I set off home that night, and I found the same thing. My chest felt painful, and I was struggling to breath again. It was scary on the tube, as for the first time I can remember I had to sit down. Standing wasn't an option. Anyway - I made it home eventually, and I thought about what to do. I was going to see the GP in the morning, but I checked the NHS direct website to see what they had to say about my symptoms.

The interaction went something like this:

"Chest Pain?" Yes.
"Breathing Difficulties?" Yes.
"Phone 999. Now. We mean it. Now."

Oh dear. That looked serious. I checked it again. Maybe I'd made a mistake.

I hadn't.

I didn't dial 999, but I got a taxi, and off I went to Newham General not knowing what to expect. I think the triage system favours people with my symptoms as I didn't wait long with the usual bunch of nutters you find at night in an A&E department. It didn't take me long to be hooked up to an ECG machine for initial assessment. It got worse when the nurse took more and more readings "just so the doctors can be sure". Oh. My. God. Shit shit shit. What was happening?

After about half hour, I found myself in the resuscitation area. This was beginning to look serious. I was wired up to the heart monitor. Constant observation. Then came the oxygen mask. I really thought this was looking bad at this stage. I talked to some nurses, and to a doctor. They took blood tests. Lots of them. And Chest X Rays. They prodded, listened and talked. And all the time I couldn't begin to imagine what was going on.

After what seemed a life time, the doctor spoke with me. She told me that she thought it was most likely damage to my rib cage. I asked her why I was struggling for breath though. She told me she didn't know. Then she went off to ask the medical registrar.

Bugger. The registrar? Basically she was unsure. After a long while she told me that she'd need to take some more tests, and they moved me from Resus to an area called Clinical Decision Unit. This was better, but it was an area for observation where they collect data to work out if you're ill enough to get admitted. So it was back to the ECG, and back to more blood tests.

And then at 6 in the morning, I was discharged. I was fine. They'd found nothing. My tests apparently were "unremarkable" apart from inverted T waves in AVF whatever that means. But the medical registrar was unconcerned. Thank God. The only thing that they had found was that my blood oxygen level was down, which at least confirmed my breathing difficulties and dizzy episodes. They told me to take it up with my GP.

So - it turns out that my problems were relatively benign. I'd most probably damaged my ribcage which was causing pain, which meant that my breathing was much shallower, causing me to try and breathe more adding to my chest pain. It also transpires I was catching a cold again, so my breathing capacity was much reduced. My GP also told me that rib injuries generally peak in terms of pain 7-10 days after they occur. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but at least I've got nothing to worry about.

Still, in a way it's been a bit of a blessing. I was told once more that my blood pressure is higher than it should be. The nurse in the CDU asked me about it, and I told her I kind of knew about it, but I'd not really done much about it. "Wise move", she muttered as she walked off. She's got a point though. It's about time I got on top of it. Which gives me all the more reason to lose the weight I'd set out to last year. If I need any more motivation than casting my mind back to being in the emergency ward then I don't know what else will persuade me.

At the turn of the year, I really thought it was going to be a good year for me. For a brief moment this January I thought perhaps not. But now - in a strange way I'm more convinced than ever. I'm now looking forward to the rest of the year more than ever.