Who'd Have Thought It

So there I was, 2.30 last Thursday afternoon, sat in my office drinking coffee and booking tickets for the cinema to see Prince Caspian with my kids.

No sooner had I booked the tickets than it happened. Chest pain. Not like in the adverts that you see on billboards with the guy who looks like there's a belt tightening around his chest, but chest pain nonetheless. Bugger!

So, being the consummate Health Care Professional that I am, I snuck over to A&E and into resus and attached myself to a monitor. Now, you can't tell from just three leads whether the rhythm is truly unpleasant, but it gives you some idea. The rhythm and the fact that I felt like crap suggested that I was compromised. Next stop Coronary Care Unit (CCU), 'cos if you're going to arrest, that's the place to do it.

By the time I'd got there, the pain had gone, so I sat down and joked about having chest pain hence my being there. Clearly, it had been a false alarm.

WRONG! Unfortunately, ten minutes later, the pain returned. This was a bit more like the guy with the belt so I asked the staff if they'd mind doing an ECG on me. Now, because of my somewhat warped sense of humour, they thought I was joking, but I eventually convinced them that I wasn't. Just as well, really, as when the ECG was done, it showed that there were 'ischaemic changes indicative of a myocardial infarction (MI)' (For the non-medical 'not enough blood getting to the heart muscle making the squiggly lines a bit more squiggly, which you might see if someone was having a heart attack').

The next couple of hours were a bit of a blur, with needles being stuck in me, blood being taken, drugs being given, echocardiograms being performed etc. It was made more of a blur with the addition of diamorphine. How anybody can take this recreationally, I do not know. It made me feel really odd, and I couldn't keep my eyes open.

At 5.10pm, I was loaded into the back of an ambulance, with the A&E staff waving and laughing at me, and I began the 50 minute journey to London (only that short a time due to the lights and sirens) and four hours after my first bit of chest pain, I was in the cardiac catheter lab of a London hospital having a stent placed in my Left Anterior Descending artery (one of the coronary arteries).

After this I was transferred to the CCU at this hospital and told that I would have to stay in bed for 24 hours!

Unfortunately, on Friday, I was told that not only did my blood tests show that I'd had an MI but that it had also been noticed that I had a narrowing in one of my other coronary arteries (the Left Main Stem), although they were sure that it would be fine on investigation, and that I would have to stay in hospital until at least Monday! Another 'bugger!' as hospitals at weekends are very boring.

Fortunately, my beloved visited me on Friday and brought some DVDs and a portable player, as well as a book. Better than staring at the four walls.

She also visited on Sunday as did my friend H, who was much better than when I telephoned her on Thursday evening to tell her where I was (she lives just down the road from the hospital). Now maybe it was that she had been to a Garden Party and had a bit of champagne, but when I texted her, she called me back and gave me a full scale bollocking! At least she'd calmed by Sunday!

At last, Monday arrived. The day that I was going home! All I had to do was wait for another angiogram to check out the 'dodgy' artery and I could go. At least that was the theory. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be the case. Instead, it was found that the blockage in the Left Main Stem was more severe than expected and that the only solution was a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG). Bugger No.3! Also, because I'd had more ischemia during the procedure I was told that I couldn't go home.

Having worked in Cardiac for many years, I know everything that goes on during a CABG, and have to say that it is something that I'm really not looking forward to. But I will allegedly feel better once it’s done, and having met the surgeon this morning, I feel a bit more reassured. I also know that I will be having it done in early September.

Moving on to my 'friends'! I use the '' as the reaction from most of them when I have called them and told them is initial disbelief, convinced that I am winding them up, followed in most cases by amusement. At least they have a sense of humour, unlike one of the hospital staff.

I gave up smoking nearly 11 weeks ago after nearly 30 years of addiction to the weed. Since then, I've had a large pulmonary embolism and now an MI. So, I told one of the doctors that clearly smoking was better for me than non-smoking and that on discharge I would have to catch up and therefore smoke 60 a day instead of my previous 20. Cue tumbleweed and lead balloons!

So, here I am, back at home, still alive, and better go to bed as it’s getting late and I have had a heart attack you know