Below is the story of Peter Jemmett who attended the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust cardiac rehab in March 2017:
My story begins on Wednesday 28th Dec 2016 (a date etched into my memory) when I decided to go for a 6.8 mile walk from Bledlow Ridge. It was a bright cold morning with an overnight frost turning to a mist laying in the valley and being a keen amateur photograher I fancied getting some atmospheric photos.
It was on the lower slope of Yoesden Bank on my final climb back to Bledlow Ridge that I first started feeling a little discomfort in my chest, I had similar pains under exertion on a fairly regular basis since being diagnosed and treated for unstable angina in 2013 and didn’t consider this any different, so before attempting the climb took a puff of my GTN spray. This didn’t really help but I pushed on thinking it just a touch of angina, but the hill was steep and the aching increased the higher I climbed even with the occasional stop to catch my breath and take some photos.
Reaching the top didn’t ease the pain, but at last the ground was level, I just need to get back to the car and I’ll be alright. However, the aching wouldn’t go no matter how slow I walked, the GTN spray had seemed to make it worse if anything so I didn’t fancy trying that again. I get to the car and drive the 9.5 miles homes still not really considering this could be a heart attack, there was no crushing pain and I don’t remember any tingling in my arm, just this dull aching in the middle of my chest.
At home, right, I mustn’t say anything to the Mrs, she will only say “you’ve been overdoing it again, haven’t you!” and she’s probably right and I really didn’t feel like an inquisition. I’ll just sit quiet and relax …. no, that’s not working. Walk about a bit, sit down, stand up, nothing is working and I just can’t get comfortable, I’m starting to get more than a bit worried now. Eventually we call 111, they do their best to keep me calm but by now I’m getting panic-stricken and starting to hyperventilate with distress and anxiety. They get me to use the GTN spray again and ask my wife to give me some aspirin. The ambulance arrives and the paramedics carry out an ECG and other tests before asking if I can walk to the ambulance.
I’m taken to the Cardiac & Stroke Receiving Unit at Wycombe hospital where further ECG’s, blood tests, X-Ray’s and an assortment of other tests are performed. By now the pain had all but disappeared and I was feeling a lot more relaxed just wanting to go home and sleep the whole ordeal off but had to remain in my small cubicle ward where the wife, who had been left abandoned at home in the rush, turns up and stays with me while we nervously wait the results.
The nurse eventually comes in and says “You’ve had a mild heart attack”, “What? – that was a heart attack!?” This was confirmed by the troponin level in my blood. I think I was initially going to be kept in Wycombe but then told as it was now late and they couldn’t carry out emergencies overnight, I would be transferred to Harefield hospital.
The next day at Harefield I was taken down for an angioplasty with the upshot being one more stent to add the two I previously received in 2013 and further investigation to check other lesser diseased arteries.
It had only been just a little over 3.5 years since I had my last stents and the fact that I could deteriorate to the point of a heart attack in such a short time worried me. With further ‘untreated’ narrowed arteries it felt like a ticking time-bomb waiting for the next incident.
It was time to make some resolute changes to my lifestyle.
So, when cardiac rehabilitation nurse invited me to attend the rehab sessions at Wycombe hospital I practically bit her hand off. I found that after my first heart event in 2013 the uncertainly in your own ability to carry out even the most mundane tasks like climbing the stairs or lifting the shopping makes you almost too afraid to even try, that you might be over exerting yourself and god forbid, that you will give yourself a heart attack – it’s a real fear. Attending those first rehab classes had rebuilt my confidence, given me the belief that I could get back to a normal life and that playing with the grandkids wasn’t life threatening and I wanted that same reassurance again, but this time make proper life-time changes to my routines & diet with more determination to improve my health & fitness so I wouldn’t be back in another 3.5 years.
On 21st Feb 2017 I started the first of 6 weeks of cardiac rehabilitation classes, but this part of the story really began back at my heart assessment 3 weeks earlier. Besides receiving my pedometer and starting an obsession in counting steps, a series of measurements; heart rate, blood pressure, BMI and waist were taken which have since become the base point for tracking my subsequent progress. The Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation Team set long term targets against these measurements which have remained my targets to this day.
Along side the exercise sessions were educational lessons ‘Healthy hearts’ covering such aspects as ‘How the heart works’, ‘Managing stress and anxiety’, ‘Heart disease risk factors’, ‘Physical activity and exercise’, ‘Medicines to protect your heart’ and ‘Eating for a healthy heart’.
It was during one of these ‘Healthy hearts’ sessions that an ex-patient, Steve Wildman talked about his own experience and his enthusiasm for the South Bucks rehabilitation programme and this left a clear impression on me. He told us about how around 1,000 heart patients are helped back to fitness each year and that the programme was part funded by a charity ‘Hearts & Souls’ which raises more than £20,000 a year to fund the exercise classes, equipment and specialist trainers. This was my first connection with Hearts & Souls which has become a story all of it’s own.
Are there any other patients who have been through the rehab programme who would like to share their own experience in this feature? This can be done anonymously if you prefer, please send your story to: [email protected]
