I’ll tell the story once so I don’t have to tell it again, I’ve already told it a load of times so this is it!
I woke up early on Wednesday morning after having gone to bed after a very ordinary and standardly busy Tuesday of work, but this particular Wednesday (14th Nov 2012) I woke up with a severe chest pain at 5am, Mary still asleep, I went downstairs to see what I could make of the pain.
I suspected a heart attack but daren’t admit that to myself immediately. I went online to the NHW Direct website which wasn’t going fast enough for me so I rang the number on the site and got through straight away, answered a load of questions and the lady on the other end said she’d arramge for a Paramedic immediately, she did this and we hung up.
I went upstairs and woke Mary, told her what was up, she got up and I went downstairs and took a couple of Asprin cos I knew that they are good for thining your blood. By the time Mary came down the Paramedics were here with an Ambulance, they came in a shaved my chest in a few places, stuck stuff on me and said hospital time. They were brilliant, did a load of tests and ave me emergency pills so I was ready to be admitted into Dorset County Hospital (DCH).
On arrival at DCH I had a bed allocated and a visit from a heart specialist who had a look at my blood tests and said that the initial results showed that it was a heart attack, they wouldn’t know what type or how severe until the 12 hour blood test. This meant that I had to be bed ridden with drips and wires and bottles to pee in for the day.
Mary visited me driven up to Dorchester by Amanda (thanks) and looked suitably concerned, she tells me now it’s cos I looked very Grey (50 shades?) but it was good to see her.
Wednesday night’s visit from the specialist confirmed that the blood test showed that I’d had a good quality full on heart attack. He said he’d try to get me into surgery on Thursday morning. After that I had to have 9 ECG probes on me and a pain reliving drip in me for the whole night, if that impaairs your sleep then taking my blood pressure every hour on the hour wasn’t going to help either. And the guy farting in the next bed or the one shouting random words in his sleep opposite. It’s impossible to sleep on the ward, even if the staff are amazing.
Thursday morning eventually arrived, I wasn’t allowed brekky but taken to preping, then into surgery, awake all the way through, they give you a local in the wrist so you cant feel the tubes going in then they inject a chemical into your arm to open up the arm artery, it feels like they’re pouring boiling water up your arm. When that subsides they get to work, I had my heart arteries scraped clean, vacuumed out and 2 stents put in whilst I watched it all on 2 huge TV’s above my head whilst lying on the table. The 2 stents are 3.5mm x 18mm and 3.5mm x 15mm, each worth £2000 apparently. I’m now a commodity.
Funny thing is that I’d been in agony for 28 hours by this time and the moment I came out of surgery I felt instantly better. I had a little bruising around where the tubes went in and the stents were placed but it was nothing and I knew it would eventually go. I was also allowed to start walking to the toilet etc. so life changed in an instant again.
They kept me in overnight for observations then let me out in the morning, thanks to DCH I’m here now. Fabulous example of the NHS at work.
There’s a down side to everything, Mary’s birthday was ruined, we were meant to go to Cwmbran to visit her, and my weekend meeting my best mate, over from Houston, TX, had to be cancelled but we’ll sort that out some other time, there will be some other time!
So for now, not much going on, recovering at home and trying to sort my lifestyle issues out, diet, weight and work, wish me luck.