Me and My Big Geek Heart Attack

So why have I been off this website for the past 3 weeks? Well, everything was going swimmingly well until the afternoon of Thursday 14 November when it was struck down - literally and metaphorically - by a heart attack (technically an aortic dissection) and found myself rolling across the office floor, thinking to myself - there must be more to life than dying amid a pile of paperwork awaiting filing.

There then followed a harum-scarum ambulance race to Norfolk & Norwich Hospital, where the staff of the Acute Medical Unit put me through about 9 hours of tests to try to find out what was wrong with me. Unlike other forms of heart attacks where a key symptom is a crushing chest pain, with an aortic dissection - where the inner wall of the aorta has split - the pain is in the back but unfortunately a back pain can also be a symptom of other complaints, including slipped discs, kidney stones and even chronic indigestion. Eventually I had my diagnosis and the no-so-good news that the only place with the staff and facilities to operate on me was 75 miles away at Papworth. 

There then followed another harum scarum cross country ambulance dash - by road as my condition was regarded as too precarious to risk any turbulence that might be associated with a helicopter air-ambulance trip.

And so it was that at about 8 on Friday morning I was wheeled into the operating theatre for what proved to be a 100% successful (but lengthy, I was under the knife for around six hours) operation. The dissection was fixed by surgery and, i'm very glad to report, without complications or the need for any kevlar stents, artificial replacement heart valves or pacemakers being fitted.

One week later I was home with a prognosis of a full recovery by March - one of the slowest bits to mend is the breast-bone/sternum which has to be split during the operation and is currently held together by wire! (Or possibly baler-twine, this being Norfolk.)

Clearly my guardian angels were looking over me that day, as there were so many what-ifs that could have easily gone badly wrong however my hero is my wife Jane Christian who scraped me off the floor, called the ambulance, was with me at the N&N and then on the long drive to Papworth, then was by my bedside when i finally emerged from the anaesthetic - and then made a 150 mile round-trip every day for a week to visit me in hospital - and those visits meant everything to me in keeping up my spirits. Florence Nightingale meets Pepper Potts - and in her spare time Jane kept the business ticking over. Jane is now Nurse in Chief, which means ensuring I dont eat junk food, keeping me out of the office and keeping track of the 48 different pills I have to take each day. Jane, you are wonderful.

I'd also like to thank everyone who has wished me well, sent flowers, fruit, cards, chocolate, cakes, biscuits and books (tho a Philip K Dick anthology for a man who had to wear a catheter for a week seems a little Freudian) and especially our friend Beverly Page who did much of the driving and provided Jane with invaluable emotional support on those long hospital visits.

What was the scariest bit? I'm not sure if it was overhearing the medics saying there was no point in a doctor accompanying me on the trip from Norwich to Papworth because if the aorta did rupture, there was nothing anyone could have done to save me. Or whether it was being presented with a consent form at dawn where the options were basically (i) doing nothing, decline surgery and definitely die or (ii) do something, have the surgery and possibly die. I was rather hoping for an option (iii) wake up in the morning and find it was all a bad dream.

Scars? Yes I have a few but I promise no selfies on Facebook but let's just say that if you are casting for a zombie movie and need someone who looks like they've just revived after an autopsy, I'm your man.

You can find a good piece on aortic dissection on Wikipedia - Aortic dissection - it is relatively rare, occurring in maybe 30 per million people each year. It is more common in men and the mean age at diagnosis in 63 - which makes me Mr Average as I was born in 1950. It is also a killer, with 40% of cases leading to death before the victim reaches hospital. The first case ever identified was King George II - it also killed Lucille Ball and Albert Einstein.

And that's it from me for tonight. I'll be back to my more usual flippant self next time.