The last couple of months have disappeared in a blur.
March began with a thing I did not expect to hear which came from Phil. To give you a little background, he is the kind of man who is happy to complain about minor (or indeed potentially major) ailments to me, but rarely goes to see the doctor until I have told him to “stop telling me about it unless you’re going to see a doctor about it” in a particularly unsympathetic tone. So now you can imagine my surprise when he said to me on a Sunday evening (after he’d driven home from a weekend in Portsmouth with his college friends) “I think I’ll call the doctor in the morning; I’ve got a weird feeling in my chest”.
Fast forward to 16:45 on Monday afternoon and he returns from the doctor’s surgery:
Phil: “I’m just popping to a&e; the doctor is 99% certain that it’s just stress but he wants me to have a blood test to be sure and I have to go to the hospital for it”.
Me: “oh, would you like me to come with you?”
Phil: “no, I’ll be fine”
Me: “I will come with you”
Phil: “ok, but I’m driving!”
Me: “are you sure that’s ok?”
Phil: “yes I’m sure, let’s just go”
Fast forward (trust me though, it didn’t feel fast) to 21:00…
Doctor: “well Mr Black, it appears that your bleurghdeblah enzyme is elevated”
Phil: “oh”
Me: “what does that mean?”
Doctor: “it means that you are either having or have recently had a heart attack”
Me and Phil: “😱”
Phil spent the night in a side room of a&e attached to a monitor. He spent the next four days and three nights in the Kilverstone (cardiac care) ward strapped up to a monitor with 24 hour surveillance. During that’s time he spent a few hours in the angiogram room having one stent fitted and recovering from a TIA (mini stroke) and two days waiting to go back in to have two or three more stents put in when at 8pm on Friday they said “we’ve decided you can wait to have the other stents done as a day procedure so you can go home now!” We said “😱”
So we came home with a carrier bag full of drugs, a copy of ‘The Heart Manual’, hearts full of joy to be going home together and heads full of fear of the unknown. I never thought I’d be so glad to hear Phil snoring, at least it confirmed that he was breathing that first night home!
Gradually we have learned how to cope with it. Phil has been attending a rehab clinic which has really helped. There are so many things you’re not sure of; things like you know you have to do some exercise, but how much is the right amount, how do you know if all the medication is doing what it should and is it normal to feel this or that?
I am delighted to say that Phil is recovering really well and is very positive about a healthier and more active future.
As you know, I like to find positives in every situation, this one is no exception, in fact I believe there are many positives for both of us 😍
The main thing is that it has kickstarted us into a more active lifestyle. I had become very sedentary particularly whilst my feet were so sore and with the fatigue that the capecitabine gives me I wasn’t doing very much at all. To be honest, historically I haven’t been very interested in exercise (other than a few fad periods and the 12 months leading up to my diagnosis where I was doing Zumba regularly and starting to take up running with a somewhat extended version of the couch to 10k!) and any excuse to avoid it was readily utilised. That said, I had drawn Phil into this lifestyle with me and we had both become professional couch potatoes. We did not realise just how sedentary we had become until we were forced to take a look at ourselves.
These days I regularly say things like “I love my bike” and “let’s go for a bike ride” and “I want to do some yoga this morning” 🤣🤣🤣 I am laughing as I type that because it is just so not me!!
I must confess this has been a gradual process, in the first days after Phil’s heart attack I was just exhausted. Luckily we had Phil’s friend of nearly 40 years Franck who stepped in and did lots of the dog walks for me and hoovered and brought in logs for the log burner etc he was an absolute life saver. Going from being an absolute lady of leisure to having to run the house was a shock to the system but quickly Phil wanted to do more and as the manual said it was good to do things (as long as it didn’t make him grunt!) he started to get back into things. He was back in the kitchen first which was a relief for both of us to be honest!!! Now we are sharing the chores more (Franck is still doing the hoovering!) and we’re doing more together which is actually quite fun.
It’s not all plain sailing and there is still adjustment to be done but on the whole we feel like we’re coming out of the other side and are feeling better for it 😀
As always, I’ll keep you posted.
Talk to you soon
Lots of love Mand ❤️