Sheer Heart Attack: update 4

Monday 19th September

The morning started off usually, with the BP and temperature obs, followed by a cup of NHS-T (see what I did there?)

Breakfast, by the way, is a couple of weetabix and two rounds of toast.

And a handful of tablets that do various things to my blood and to my heart.

Until I have the angiogram nobody actually knows what damage (if any) has been done to my heart, what remedial action (if any) needs to occur, and how long I need to have for recuperation.

So I am unable to answer any of the usual questions to which people want answers.

And I include myself in that ‘people’ category.

The nurse I saw earlier from the cardigan cardiac rehabilitation unit said that I should expect to be signed off for up to four weeks.

This was obviously a shock, but then I realised that she – like me – doesn’t know what the specialist is likely to say; doesn’t know what my angiogram results will show.

Managing my expectations, obv.

A complicating administrative factor in all this hoo hah is that I haven’t yet registered with a GP practice local to home.

I’m still registered with one in Rugby.

So we are trying to get me transferred to a local GP while I’m still in hospital.

When I say ‘we’ I mean that Sam is helping; she came armed with many forms for me to fill in this evening.

In other news, I am bored.

More bored than I was yesterday.

I have spent much of the day reading helpful articles on ‘How to restore a classic motorbike’.

Sam’s Triumph 3TA might be in line for some long overdue remedial work, if it’s not too careful!

Anyway, boredom aside, let’s talk about the angiogram.

I have no idea when it’s going to happen.

It was hoped that I would have one today, but there have been emergency admissions over the weekend.

Yes, I know that I was an emergency admission on Friday, but these others have been severe emergency admissions.

Those folk who got admitted over the weekend haven’t been in the ‘not terribly emergency admissions’ category, such as I was.

So it is now Monday evening – fast approaching 9pm – and I’m ready for bed and ready for sleep.

Sam’s been to bother me again and it was lovely to see her, even though it has been less than 24 hours since I saw her last.

She amused me with cat anecdotes.

These are tales of the Rescue Kitties slaughtering most of the wildlife in the village and neighbouring farmland/countryside, last night.

Bless the cute little murdering darlings.

She says they miss me.

Miss me clearing up the corpses of the fallen critters, more like.

But I miss them.

I want to go home.

The cardiac rehab nurse, when she was here earlier, made me set goals.

Reduce my hours, work in a more controlled environment, work from home at least one day a week, lose some of the stress.

But the thing is any of those things would reduce the job that I do from what it is – from what I love doing – to something else.

Something smaller.

Something less fulfilling.

And I’m not sure if I want do a ‘less’ job.

Maybe, if I need to think about ‘managing’ my health better, just maybe it’s time to start thinking about working differently.

I don’t know what differently looks like.

Not yet.

But perhaps now is the time to start thinking about what it could look like.

Perhaps.