My heart attack (don’t worry, last one I think!) - why, what if, recovery etc.

I am obviously thinking a fair bit about heart related stuff at the moment, and I suppose the biggest question I had almost from the start was why. Why did I get a heart attack out of the blue? If you read the previous blog post then you will know that my heart attack didn’t actually come out of nowhere because I did get various warning signs, but it wasn’t as if I sat down on Jan 1st earlier this year and imagined that I was going to have a severe heart attack at some point in 2023…………..

I am 50 years old as you know. I haven’t drunk alcohol since I was 18 and I stopped smoking without any trouble a couple of months before my 30th birthday. For sure I could do with eating more vegetables which I don’t really like, but my wife and girls get a lot of good stuff in me and I always eat a lot of fruit. I don’t have high blood pressure and I don’t have high cholesterol either. I am not some monk who exists on bread and water alone and I could do with losing some weight which I have been doing this year. I have always been walking fit, and I mean fast walking, not the sort of plodding I see most people doing, and this year I have started running which has done me so much good. The sort of fishing which so many of us do is bloody good for us as well in terms of activity. I don’t think I lead a particularly stressful life but I know I am guilty of bouncing brain syndrome and I can often be thinking too many steps ahead about stuff. I have never been the best sleeper but I don’t spend my waking hours being tired. I guess my dad dying badly of cancer and both girls going through exams plus working for myself and so on have contributed towards a certain amount of what could be called stress, but a lot of fresh air from fishing, walking and running doesn’t half do good for one’s brain.

Itching to go fishing like you would not believe!

This is the important bit and it’s something that some of you might need to think about. In most respects I don’t believe that I was what a lot of us might think is a classic candidate for a heart attack - the more I learn, the more I don’t think it’s that applicable in a lot of cases anyway. After I had my first stent fitted and I was on the ward, almost straight away I was asked various questions, of which one was “do you have any history of heart attacks or related heart problems in your family?”, to which I answered no, I don’t think so. I was obviously talking to various kind members of my family on the phone to reassure them that I was still alive and kicking, and in due course mum messaged me back to say that yes, we did actually have a strong history of heart attacks in the family……………

And I had no idea how much importance the doctors apply to genetics when it comes to stuff like heart attacks. When I talked to mum again and we broke down who on my dad’s side of the family had actually had heart attacks and who had died from them, it was actually quite shocking. I obviously relayed this information to the medical people on the ward I was in and they were really interested. As I keep saying, I am no medic but I know more than I did a couple of weeks ago about heart attack stuff, and it seems to be the case that I have some sort of rogue gene and the likelihood is that I was always going to get a heart attack at some point. I could have lived like a monk and quite possibly got a heart attack later in life, or I could have been three times the size, never taken any exercise and eaten takeaways every day, and it would have been far more likely that a very severe heart attack like I got would have killed me stone dead and I wouldn’t be typing this right now.

I would urge any of you reading this to take me as an example and have a talk to parents, siblings, grandparents etc. to try finding out if there is a history of heart stuff in your family. If there is then I believe the best course of action is to make a GP appointment and ask for a checkup. I am not entirely sure exactly what might be checked (most likely blood pressure, cholesterol, maybe heart rhythms via an ECG and so on), but my understanding is that a lot of potential bad stuff can actually be prevented if various things are picked up on and then lifestyles are modified if required. Don’t bury your head people.

I am now on a recovery programme and so far I am being really good. I have been gently upping the two walks a day that I am allowed to do and this morning I took Storm out on my own for a great big 15mins! - which does actually feel like a really big step. I am trying my best not to walk at my usual fast pace but the reality is that I really struggle to walk slowly. I went out on my own for the first time this morning but I took my mobile phone and a little canister of GTN spray which I have been told to always carry with me. I am now allowed to drive again which is such a boost.

What I am noticing is that at some points in a typical day I can suddenly start feeling pretty tired. I have never been able to sleep in the daytime and having a heart attack doesn’t seem to have changed that, but I am really having to be conscious that at certain points I just need to sit down somewhere peaceful, concentrate on my breathing, and almost just be. The only tiny little tinge I have felt in my heart is when our eldest daughter rang us from the Isle of Wight yesterday morning to tell us what she got in her A-Levels and that she had got into the university she wanted to go to. The tiny tinge I believe came purely from a dad’s heart being fit to burst with pride and happiness, but I think I am allowed that and I made sure to sit down and breathe and smile. This parenting lark is an emotional rollercoaster!

The what-ifs are the things that I am trying my best not to think about too much, but of course I wonder if they are going to come up and bite me at some point. I can’t ignore the simple fact that almost everything went my way on Tuesday 8th August and I am alive to tell the tale, but if only one or two things had gone differently I could have and most likely would have died the other day. I am only being honest but goddam life can turn on a sixpence and I really want to spend a lot more time with my awesome family on this awesome earth.

Why for example did I choose to go running around home instead of going fishing somewhere fairly remote on that morning? I remember almost mentally tossing a coin between going fishing early on my own at a rock location which I guess is about a mile and a half strenuous walk from the car - then working for the rest of the day - or running around home first thing, doing some work, then going fishing late that afternoon and into the early evening. It was most likely the simple fact that I had an exciting new pair of running shoes - as exciting as a new fishing rod? - which swayed me towards running and not fishing somewhere away from my car and any help.

Was it fate? Was it simply meant to be that I was able to get myself the help I needed when the heart attack hit me? Would I have been able to get to help if I had been out fishing where I had thought about going? I will never know, but there are a lot of what-ifs which want to rattle around my brain in the early hours of the morning and I am doing my best to quieten those voices and get on with my recovery and enjoying the simple fact that I am still here with my family.

And my recovery is (selfishly?) my main aim at the moment. The more the specialists talked to me during my time in hospital, the more I learnt how important it was to find out how much damage my heart had sustained during the actual heart attack. This would determine my recovery period and whether I would be able to get back to 100% and potentially a bit more because my heart hadn’t been working properly for at least a fair while. I was excited to see the consultant last Friday morning, but also pretty nervous as I am sure you can understand.

When he came to my bed with his team of people, I took his smile as a good sign. He said that of course my heart had sustained some damage because the heart’s a muscle and a heart attack damages it - but from the scan they expected my heart to fully repair and with my level of fitness (SO important) and so on he expected me to be back to full fitness/strength within six weeks IF I was sensible and followed the recovery programme. Talk about a lot of good news and damn right I know how lucky I am. I go back to the what-ifs because time is of the absolute essence when you get a heart attack and the longer your heart is struggling for the right amount of blood, the more potential there is for lasting damage. I got lucky and I fully intend to capitalize on that luck and be around for a while longer.

Thank you so much for indulging me these past few blog posts as I continue to work through my heart attack. I stand firm in my hope that what I have been through and my communicating to you all about it might help a few people out in some way. If it doesn’t then so be it, but wow does it help my head to write stuff down and be open and honest with you all. There is a lot more I could talk about but I reckon we have done pretty well. I am trying my best not to worry about the turgid state of English rugby as we face Ireland tomorrow and then start the World Cup soon, but I can always console myself with the fact that I was old enough to remember Nov 22nd 2003 as the best day ever. At the moment my fishing life is no more than living through other anglers’ catch reports and various communications from various mates who are out there actually doing it and catching fish, but give me a little longer and some longer daily walks and I will be back to it. Thank you again for all your comments and messages and feedback, you all have a good weekend and I will see you next week when we can get back to some sort of normality………………