Heart Attack to 10K (part 1) - That fateful day.

THAT FATEFUL DAY.
(Phase I – heart attack)

Being at a bit of a loose end and with nothing better to do during that dull period between Christmas and New Year (or the Plymouth Argyle & Cheltenham Town matches as my fellow Chairboys & girls would remember it), I decided to go for a walk in the local countryside around the rolling Chiltern hills. Overnight it had frozen, but the bright winter sunshine turned the early frost into a mist persuading me that it might make for some good atmospheric photographs.

So, on Wednesday 28^th December 2016 (a date now etched into my brain) I drove out to Bledlow Ridge, parked the car in a side road just after mid-day and set out with my camera on a 6.8 mile walk that by the time I returned to the car would become an adventure I wouldn't forget in a hurry and ultimately have a dramatic change on my priorities and the way I live my life. I had been meaning to walk the Radnage area for some time and with the afternoon bright sunlight low in the winter sky and the mist clinging to the valley floor it did indeed make for some good photography.

[photo collection .... click here]

From Bledlow Ridge I followed the path parallel to Bottom Road and headed toward St Mary’s Church in Radnage, a quirky little late 12th century building which stirred my interest in historic buildings but as it was locked I made a mental note to revisit sometime for a proper look around [see part 4.1]. I continued through Town End and up over the hill and back down towards Pophley's Farm and out along Collier's Lane, a narrow track that follows up the valley in the direction of the Stokenchurch tower. Three or four landrovers full with jovial gents still full of Christmas cheer obviously given a day release by the wives' passed by with the last one pulling up and asking “is it much further to the shooting grounds?”

A little way down the track the landrovers turned up the hill and disappeared into Crowell Wood while I carried on, eventually turning into the same woods further down. Climbing the hill, the shooting party must have found their destination as shots sounded from behind the trees disturbing the otherwise tranquil scene. Deeper into the woods the path continued down the hill where I and a Roe deer suddenly startled each other as it stumbled across my path in a haste to escape, then a small herd of about 5 more run off a little further on, all too quick for me to get a shot at ..... with my camera! – but this was turning into a satisfying little walk.

Yeosden Bank

There isn’t too much to report on the rest of the walk other feeling in good spirits, if a bit hungry as I passed by the closed Sir Charles Napier, down the hill to Sunley Wood and back along the valley towards St Mary’s where, joining the Chiltern Way, the path starts the final ascent back up to Bledlow Ridge through the Yoesden nature reserve. My main concern by now was wondering if I could find a shop open on the way home to buy some nibbles to satisfy my rumbling stomach.

It was on the lower slope of Yoesden Bank that I first started feeling a little discomfort in my chest, I had experienced similar pains under exertion on a fairly regular basis since being diagnosed and treated for unstable angina in 2013 and didn't consider this any different, so before attempting the climb took a puff of my GTN spray [Glyceryl Trinitrate, sprayed under the tongue to relieve angina pain by dilating the blood vessels]. This didn’t really help but I pushed on thinking it just a touch of angina and when I get to the top it will pass, but the hill was steep and the aching increased the higher I climbed even with the occasional stop to catch my breath and take some photos (these show the time was now about 2:35 p.m.). Reaching the top didn't ease the pain, but at last the ground was more level, just need to get back to the car and I’ll be alright. The path was longer than I first thought and as I was now having some difficulty it felt like it was taking forever to reach the road. The feeling like indigestion high behind my breast bone wouldn’t go no matter how slow I walked, the GTN spray had seemed to make it worse if anything so I didn't fancy trying that again. Seeing a house ahead the thought did pass me that at least I might been seen now should anything happen, should I knock on their door?, no that's daft, the car’s not much further on, it’s just a bit of angina, I’ll be OK once I sit down.

Having walked about 0.7 mile I'm sat in the car and starting to worry, 'why won’t this pain go?' - my angina always eases when I rest. Better get home in the warm, I’ll be Ok then. The 9.5 mile drive home was straight forward enough, there was hardly any traffic on the road which suited me as I just wanted to get home with all thoughts of finding a shop long gone. It never really occurred to me that I might be having a heart attack and probably shouldn’t be driving, there was no crushing pain and I don’t remember any tingling in my arm, just this dull aching in the middle of my chest - I just wanted to get home.

At home, right, mustn’t say anything to the Mrs, she will only say “you’ve been overdoing it again, haven’t you!” and she’s probably right and I really didn’t feel like an inquisition. I’ll just sit quiet and relax .... no, that’s not working. Walk about a bit, sit down, stand up, nothing is working and I just can’t get comfortable, I’m starting to get more than a bit worried now; this is a persistent aching and nothing is easing it, its starting to dawn on me that this isn't the normal run-of-the-mill angina and there might be something else going on. Panic is starting to take hold as I eventually pluck up the courage and with a pathetic whimper plead "help me", handing her my mobile I ask my wife to call the emergency helpline on 111 for advice, still not really considering this could be a heart attack. She makes the call and after a confusing conversation hands the phone back to me, I try to explain what my going through and a calm voice attempts to reassure me but he is obviously as confused as my Mrs. It then transpires that in the panic my wife had somehow inadvertently called Marcus, my nephew who was desperately trying to work out why the hell some-one was asking him for medical help and make sense of the situation.

A second call gets us through to the emergency services, they do their best to keep me calm but by now I'm getting panic-stricken and starting to hyperventilate with distress and anxiety. They get me to use the GTN spray again and ask my wife to give me some aspirin. In the meanwhile they call out an ambulance and in a short while the paramedics arrive, carry out an ECG and other tests before asking if I can walk to the ambulance. No time for shoes or a coat, just go as you are (in my case that is still in football socks and covered in mud from the walk).

I’m taken to the Cardiac & Stroke Receiving Unit at Wycombe hospital where further ECG’s, blood tests, X-Ray’s and an assortment of other tests are performed. By now the pain had all but disappeared and I was feeling a lot more relaxed just wanting to go home and sleep the whole ordeal off but had to remain in my small cubicle ward where the wife, who had been left abandoned at home in the rush, turns up and stays with me while we nervously wait the results.

After what seemed like hours, the nurse eventually comes in and says “You’ve had a mild heart attack”, “What? - that was a heart attack!?”, “Yes, we were surprised as well”. During a heart attack, heart muscle cells become starved of oxygen and are irreparably damaged. As they die they release proteins (troponin) into the blood stream, the level of which are measured and if the count remains high after 2 blood tests some hours apart then this confirms a heart attack, as in my case. My memory is a little fuzzy what happens next as I take in the implications of this life changing news and the realisation that I won't be going home tonight after all. I think I was initially going to be kept in Wycombe but then told as it was now late and they couldn’t carry out emergencies overnight, I would be transferred to Harefield hospital ….. just in case.

After a restless evening where I'm too scared to fall asleep I’m just dropping off when at about 5.00 a.m. the ambulance turns up to take me to Harefield. I’m wheeled out into the pitch black, freezing air and loaded in the back of my 2nd ambulance within a few hours. Only having a vague idea where Harefield actually was, I try to trace our course while laying strapped on my back in the dark being thrown from side to side but can’t even decide if we went on the A40 or M40 out of Wycombe and I'm totally disoriented and given up by the time we reach my bed & breakfast for the next few days. A quick brief look at the roofline silhouette against the dark winter sky at Harefield as I’m rolled out of the ambulance is all I knew about the place other than it being the world renowned heart hospital where the ground-breaking first UK heart and lung transplant took place in 1983 and that I was following in the footsteps of such an illustrious former cardiac patient as Eric Morecambe.

In the Oak ward were two other holiday guests, one who was discharged a little later that morning and a long term resident who had already served about 3 months with the same sentence still in front of him, he really had had a rough ride and I felt sorry for him but he kept himself in good spirits chatting with the nurses who all who he knew by first names. Another ‘walking’ victim arrived later the that morning and the 3 of us were positioned in each corner of the ward meaning we had to talk very loud to each other, he was younger than me but wasn’t surprised to ended up having a heart attack as he lived a stereotypical northern lifestyle of deep fried everything washed down by gallons of beer (that might be a bit of an exaggeration) before moving to a more moderate life down south.

Getting older you certainly don't want to get hung up over your dignity. After a 'short, back and sides' with the nurse around the groin and wrists, I had to concede to having a bit of a prostate problem which always seems to get worse at the most inconvenient times. Being bed-bound meant the need for a continuous supply of ‘bottles’, but the worse was when going for the angioplasty. On the way down I asked if I could relieve myself before the procedure and told I could, but when arriving in the Catheter Lab wasn’t allowed to leave the bed. With my arms already strapped down in stirrups ready for the insertion of the catheter through my right wrist I had to put up with the ignominy of the doctor positioning my privates into a bottle wedged between my legs so I could relieve myself during the procedure – not that I had the ability to multitask like that!

The nurses busied themselves attaching various lines and wires before the doctor reassuringly lets me know what to expect, but hey, I've been through this before! All I can do is try and remain calm and relaxed as possible as the catheter is fed through my wrist while the medics pass instructions to one another in words I don't fully understand. Funnily, I remember more about the sensations from my first angioplasty in 2013 than from this one, the feeling of angina and aching in my jaw and teeth, maybe this time I was concentrating more on not peeing myself as all I can recall is a peculiar movement passing through my shoulder (or was that my imagination?). Following that first angioplasty there had been an oversight where I wasn't started on the anticoagulation until 6 months after the procedure, this did concern me so while they were poking around in my heart I asked if they could check the plumbing around my first stents - all was nice and clear which was reassuring [see part 4.8 (stress echo-cardiogram) for further development on this]. After a while the doctors all disappeared and I could hear distant talking from the back of the room as they decided how best to treat me. The upshot being one more stent and further investigation to check other lesser diseased arteries.

[Angioplasty with stenting video, this shows the catheter entering via the wrist as per this operation, in 2013 this carried through my groin .... click here]

Following the angioplasty it was bed rest punctuated by a round of numerous tests both in-ward and being pushed around various hospital departments in a wheel chair but at least I could eat at last! My mobile battery was on its last legs so contact was proving difficult until a kindly nurse found a discarded charger and suddenly I was back in touch with the world again!  Facebook was a boom, I noticed that my wife broken the news and it seemed almost implausible that it was still less than 24 hours since I was on the walk as so much had happened but the stream of messages of support and well wishes that followed really did give my spirits a lift and help pass the time while recovering from the operation – there were a lot of caring people out there and your compassion was much appreciated (they still bring a tear to my eye when I read back through them - link).

One of these excursions from the ward was for an echocardiogram [video], this showed that I had damaged my left ventricle with the ejection fraction of 51% - in layman's terms this is a measurement of the amount of blood in the left ventricle that is pumped out of the heart around the body, which is slightly below the normal of 55%-70%. There was also further moderate vascular disease which was to be controlled by medication.

Time does drag when all you can do is look at another ward block from the bedside window but in the following couple of days the monotony was broken with welcome visits from my brother Frank & his wife Jan (he was after my season ticket for the next match), and then my wife, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter who immediately wanted to ‘go home now’. I did receive good news that I had become a great-uncle for the umpteenth time with the birth of Lucy, first child for Robert and Natalie and offered my congratulations via facebook but was quickly reprimanded by my sister Christine for breaking the news ahead of the proud parents. During the quiet period in the evening, I could only follow the Wanderers 1-0 win away to Cheltenham Town via twitter and messages on facebook from my fellow Chairboy buddies, a result that extended the Blues unbeaten run to 11 games and at least made that evening a bit more endurable.

With all this spare time you start to ponder on things - what if this happened earlier in the walk?, when I was in some remote isolated inaccessible place, there had been next to nobody about the entire course apart from the shooting party and another couple out for a walk. I had been extremely lucky this had just been a mild heart attack near the end of the walk and I was still able to return to my car, but was a serious warning that needed notice. It had only been just a little over 3.5 years since I had my last stents and the fact that I could deteriorate to the point of a heart attack in such a short time worried me. With further 'untreated' narrowed arteries it felt like a ticking time-bomb waiting for the next incident, it was left to me to monitor how I was feeling but surely any further deterioration would be slow and hard to detect and if I carry on the way I was going it would be just a matter of time before that bomb goes off - again.

It was time to make some resolute changes to my lifestyle. 

So, when cardiac rehabilitation nurse invited me to attend the rehab sessions I practically bit her hand off. I found that after my first heart event in 2013 the uncertainly in your own ability to carry out even the most mundane tasks like climbing the stairs or lifting the shopping makes you almost too afraid to even try, that you might be over exerting yourself and god forbid, that you will give yourself a heart attack – it’s a real fear. Attending those first rehab classes had rebuilt my confidence, given me the belief that I could get back to a normal life and that playing with the grandkids wasn’t life threatening and I wanted that same reassurance again, but this time make proper life-time changes to my routines & diet with more determination to improve my health & fitness so I wouldn’t be back in another 3.5 years.

3 days of lying in bed was starting to take its toll, I was feeling really grubby and itchy not having had a proper wash or (face) shave since before the walk, a bed wash doesn't give the same results.  Once the inflatable wrist strap was removed I was allowed to move around again, visit the toilet and on the last day given the freedom of the shower cubicle – it was absolute bliss!


Heart attack to 10K pictorial record - click here

Thank-you for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts on any subject I have covered, please leave your comments below or email me at peterjemmett@aol.com


To come:
Part 2 - Back home & drama at White Hart Lane. (Phase II - home recovery)  click here
Part 3 - They tried to make me go to rehab, I said yes, yes, yes please (Phase III - cardiac rehabilitation)  click here
Part 4.1 - Getting FFITer and Harefield & Heartbreak hill revisited. (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.2 - Walking for heart & soul & finding parkrun (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.3 - End of year 1 round-up and assessment. (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.4 - Falling heart rate: fitter or hibernation? (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.5 - Pain in the bum, going senile and sub 30! (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.6 - Sub 29, attack of the AKI and 1 year old (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.7 - Pushing the boundaries (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.8 - Bling, bling, bling, two 10K's and a 5K. (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.9 - 3 Years On, Ragged Radnage and Pete's bolus journey (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.10 - Coping with COVID-19 and what they say (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.11 - Living in the lock-down (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.12 - Plus and minus 3.5 years; heart attack to half marathon! (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.13 - Is it worth the risk? (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.14 - Mixed bag through Covid (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.15 - Getting back in the groove (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.16 - Reintegrating back into society (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.17 - Get that crazy rhythm (the low down on AFib) (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style)  click here
Part 4.18 - The 5 year itch, time to cut the CRAP! (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style) click here
Part 4.19 - The last word (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style) click here
Part 4.20 - Persisting with parkrun (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style) click here
Part 4.21 - Stuck in reverse (recap of 2022) (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style) click here
Part 4.22 - Starting all over again 6 years on (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style) click here
Part 4.23 - God bless the NHS (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style) click here
Part 4.24 - What I can, when I can (Phase IV - sustaining a healthy life-style) click here