Doesn’t time fly!

It’s the big Five-Zero!  Fifty days since I had my Heart Attack.  Seven weeks and a day.  Forever, and no time at all.

Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun!  🙂

To say a lot has changed would be an understatement.  Some changes have been forced on me.  Some have been voluntary*.  Others have been a consequence of circumstances.

Scary?

“It must have been scary!”…  No, not really.  At no point over the past 51 days have I felt like my life was in imminent danger.  However, it doesn’t take much imagination to see that things could have gone that way.  In the UK, one in three people who have a Heart Attack don’t make it to hospital.

The next time you’re in a lift with two other people, imagine one of you not making it to your floor.  I was in that lift.  I was lucky.  I didn’t realise how much danger I was potentially in until afterwards.  By that stage, the immediate danger was over and the ball was in my court (more or less).

A new Dad (in reverse)

In some ways, it feels like part of me died when I had the Heart Attack.  Not in a bad way.  In a way that created space for new parts of me to grow in their place.  In fact, its probably more correct to say “dormant” rather than “new”, many aspects of the “new” me have been there before.  A very long time ago!  So long ago that only close family members and very old friends might recognise them.  As far as the girls are concerned, I am a new, thinner, slightly bizarre, “active” Dad.

Even knowing what I know now, I’m not sure if there is anything that would have convinced me to make some of the changes I have done in advance of something “happening”.  It still all seems slightly surreal.  Perhaps if someone I knew well, who I could easily relate to, had been through the same thing as I have, it might have been enough for me to take action.  Perhaps.

The bottom line is, if you want to, it’s not that difficult to convince yourself that it won’t happen to you.  That you’re low risk.  Different from people like me.

Awareness isn’t enough!

You need to take action to make a difference.

It doesn’t surprise me that prevention of Heart Disease is such a challenge.  For many (me included) it requires big changes to make a difference.  I guess the key is to keep any changes small, to recognise when you’re veering of course and make minor corrections to keep you on track.  So many people are so far off course that small changes just aren’t enough.

For me, my broken heart has been fixed, the course has been corrected and I’m looking to the future.

Catching up

I have some catching up to do – a holiday with the family (although Florida must wait!), recognising the patience of my colleagues, repaying the goodwill of our clients, and sustaining the lifestyle I’ve adopted since leaving hospital so none of us have to go through this again!

Here’s to the next 50 days… and making it count!

***

*Voluntary is probably a bit strong.  I’m not sure I had a huge amount of choice in any of the changes, but I guess even the perception of choice makes them more palatable.