Discharged

On Friday last week I was back at Harefield hospital for another consultation. I had been worrying a little over the last few months as I have been having some small sharp pains in my chest area around my heart. Not enough for me to use the emergency GTN spray or even mention the pain particularly, but these things do tend to remain as a nagging worry. So I asked the Doc what he thought. 

"Haven't a clue," he said. 

I looked at him wide-eyed expecting... well, a more 'considered' answer shall we say. 

After all, I'm in Harefield,  one of the countries leading Heart specialist hospitals. I just don't expect the docs here to shrug and say they haven't a clue. They have even developed a new heart pump which patients awaiting a heart transplant can have fitted and that will give them maybe two extra years of life while a new heart is found. However, funding, as always, is a problem. This chap suffered a heart attack and had to have his heart re-started 14 times, about the same amount as me, but his heart suffered irreparable damage. Just a lucky chance meeting saved his life ...

Anyway, after shrugging his shoulders at me, my doc then went on to explain that as they were short needle-stab types of pain, he didn't consider them dangerous at all. Just non-specific muscular-skeletal common or garden pain. He reminded me to recall the type of chest pain I originally experienced and if I ever felt that again, that would be a more serious indication. And, as it was now one and a half years since my heart surgery and any problems usually show up within the first year, I was doing in his words, "Rather well, considering the severity of the original heart attack". Stop worrying unnecessarily was the message. Easy for him to say!

He then had a quick listen to the old ticker and passed me fit to be discharged with a warning to eat more healthily and exercise more. Yes, I'm guilty of not doing enough of either ... So it's really time to sign up to the gym and start eating a more Mediterranean diet. So its goodbye chocolate biscuits, crisps and cakes and bread and chips and hello feta cheese and wine.  Actually I love Mediterranean food. Especially when I'm in the Mediterranean. But here in damp and gloomy England, it's just not the same somehow...