The mother said her son, interning in London away from his home, reported that he began suffering from heart trouble and chest pains because of the mounting stress.
Serious symptoms include swelling of the lips or tongue, shortness of breath, drop in blood pressure, weak pulse, trouble swallowing, chest pains, nausea and vomiting, and loss of consciousness.
Symptoms: Symptoms identified by >50 %: coughing, weak or tired, throat symptoms, congestion, headache, weakness, sweating, chills, general discomfort, runny nose, chest (trouble breathing), difficulty sleeping, and body aches or pains.
Number of medical symptoms present for at least the past 6 months, from the following list: (1) pain in the back, knees, hips or any other joint; (2) heart trouble or angina, chest pain during exercise; (3) breathlessness, difficulty breathing; (4) persistent cough; (5) swollen legs; (6) sleeping problems; (7) falling down; (8).
The presence of a chronic condition was ascertained by asking participants if they currently had any of 14 conditions: asthma; chronic bronchitis; other chest trouble; diabetes; cancer; stroke; epilepsy or fits; stomach/digestive disorder; depression/nervous trouble; other mental health problems; high blood pressure; heart troubles; liver troubles and rheumatic trouble/arthritis.
For a time he lay critically ill, and, although he rallied after several relapses, he never fully recovered from a combination of chest trouble and digestive disorder that proved intractable.
Even when a man is not experiencing troubling symptoms like chest pains, it is not uncommon for a wife to begin pushing her husband to visit the doctor long before a man thinks he needs to go.
In ten lines, the intern in question relates a hospital drama — a patient in trouble, "a new chest tube to suction" — and concludes with a superior's pithy, annihilating verdict on the intern's performance: "the needle was / in the wrong place, / just like me".
He would hesitate for an instant now and then, waiting for the right word, or would pause with a pathetic patience to master the trouble in his chest, but when he was through the sentence was perfect and entire, lacking nothing, and the word was so purely one with the man that when I read his books now and then I do not hear my own voice within my reading but the voice I heard that day".
He was ill, complaining of chest trouble and gout while still in Britain, though there is no record he received medical treatment for either condition.
