‘I don’t wish to alarm you, but you are having a heart attack’ – not words you’d ever want to hear but unfortunately they were the words that were spoken to me recently.
My wife Sarah and I had been having a relaxing Friday night in watching tv when I suddenly said to her that I wasn’t feeling right and had to stop watching. I didn’t know what it was and struggled to explain it. It wasn’t excessive pain but I just felt uncomfortable in my chest and whatever I did and however I moved, it wouldn’t go away.
We decided to call 111 to get some advice and the person on the phone decided that she thought we needed an ambulance and so called it for us. During the worrying long one hour wait for the ambulance the feeling in my chest got worse and horribly uncomfortable but still not what I’d call painful. I wondered if it could be a heart attack but I thought it surely couldn’t be. How wrong I was! When the paramedics arrived they carried out their tests and one of them calmly uttered those words at the beginning of this article. I was stunned!
The paramedics then helped me into the ambulance and with blue light flashing they sped me to Reading’s Royal Berks Hospital where I was immediately taken into the cardiac operating theatre for an emergency procedure. What a surreal scary experience! I looked up to see a surgeon and a team of nurses and doctors. I had never had any prior heart issues so didn’t quite understand when the surgeon said they were going into my heart via a vein in my arm.
It seems my main artery to the heart was 100% blocked and so they would be relieving the blockage by putting in a stent. This was all done using local anaesthetic and a bit of morphine I’d been given in the ambulance so I was conscious, staring at the ceiling wondering if I was going to survive or if this was it for me. I’m glad I didn’t know it at the time but subsequently discovered that the type of heart attack I had has only a 12% survival rate!
Thankfully the procedure was a success and about 50 minutes later the nurses wheeled me into the Cardiac Care Unit where I was to spend the next few days being monitored. Sarah and I were shocked and stunned as the heart attack had come totally out of the blue. I’d thought I was reasonably healthy and had never had any heart issues previously.
All the staff in the Cardiac Care Unit were incredibly hard working, professional qnd supportive and it was so obvious that they really cared. Despite what I’d just been through they made me feel safe and secure.
Coming home was then a very anxious time. Even though Sarah has been absolutely incredible looking after me I think we both felt very nervous that I was away from the hospital ‘security blanket’. Since coming out I have had two more ambulance led hospital stays and yet again the care was brilliant. Hopefully there won’t be any more of those as I slowly start to recover, helped by more of the cardiology team through their Cardiac Rehabilitation Programme.
I will definitely be taking their advice on lifestyle changes which actually are all very sensible to do for everyone, whether they have heart issues or not. I certainly intend to do all I can to minimise the risk of it happening again! There is a lot of information about heart health via the British Heart Foundation at https://www.bhf.org.uk/
It’s no exaggeration to say that the 111 staff, ambulance paramedics and all of the Cardiology team saved my life that night and provided amazing care afterwards, which is still ongoing. I will be forever grateful.
As well as his various music activities Chris usually writes the weekly RaW Sounds.Today feature that appears in this newspaper. Andrew Merritt, photographer for the feature has kindly stepped in to keep the feature going whilst Chris recovers. So keep on reading and listening as we continue to champion the music scene in our area and beyond.
