I thought I'd give a bit of a back ground to previous health issues I have spoken of. Just to add a slightly morbid touch to this blog. I spent maybe 5 years too long in a 13 year long marriage. I'm living proof that you should never go home with someone you picked up at 2am in the local pub. But we're all young and stupid at times. Anyway, it wasn't a whole lot of fun towards the end. I was rather annoyed with all the people who congratulated me when I informed them about the end of my marriage. I was annoyed that no one had said anything to me previously. The answer was pretty much the same from everyone: "You would have denied there was a problem had we said something". And of course they were right. No one likes to admit failure. I was pretty sure that I had done a good job in covering things up in public. Clearly I wasn't as good at hiding as I thought I was. If one of them had come to me and advised me to get out of my marriage, I would have told them they were wrong. Stupid is as stupid does, I guess.
Anyway, the way these things creep up gradually on you, you don't really notice the toll that it's taking at the time. I wasn't a happy person as it turned out, never slept properly, kept pretty much to myself (most likely to avoid having to face reality), and shut most other people out from my life. At the time I thought I was happy enough. After my marriage ended I discovered that I could not only do other things, but that I now had both the energy and willpower to do those things. While it was great for the soul, the body wasn't quite ready for such a dramatic leap. Stress takes a hidden toll on one's body in a way which often doesn't show at the time.
It was ironic that the better I felt about life, the worse my body felt. Like most people, I knew very little about heart problems. You see the films of people grasping at their chest. That's how you know. Right ? Apparently not so. The perils of Hollywood. When I first started noticing things, I thought I was experiencing the early stages of arthritis. Occasionally when I was out walking, I would experience a bit of a deep ache in my wrist. After years of sitting with a computer every day, that didn't really surprise me. I would often have sore wrists. So I never thought much about it. Sometimes if I walked a little further, I would have the same ache, but it would move to my elbow. If I really pushed myself, I would have an ache in my shoulder joint. Now, if you put that all together it does paint a bit of a picture but, at the time, it never occured to me that it would have anything to do with my heart. I never once had any kind of pain in my chest. Like you are supposed to. As I later learnt, there is no "standard" way to have a heart attack. I also knew how to fix the problem. As soon as I stopped exercising, the pain went away. Probably should have twigged that arthritis doesn't go away like that.
Life went on like that for a few months. I was a very happy person and loved getting out and about. As opposed to a few months prior when I was locking myself away. It was ironic that being less stressed would lead to more problems. Anyway, one evening I was waching television when I experienced the same pain in my shoulder. Out of nowhere, and it didn't go away. This was the first time it had happened while sitting still and it rather confused me. I also felt a little "unusual", for want of a better word. Hard to define, maybe slightly disconnected from myself. I have to say that it did unnerve me. I never went to bed that night. For no rational reason, I was actually too afraid to go to sleep. It was a very long night.
The next day I made an appointment with my local doctor to get this whole arthritis sorted out. My doctor was not known for being the quickest mover. Maybe she was part Swedish. Anywway, on this occasion, well, I forgive her a lot of things now. An hour later I was at our local hospital for an "exercise test". The test involved me jogging faster and faster until their machines told me that it was time to stop. Apart from my standard progressive arthritis, it wasn't so tough, and I was quite surprised when they suddenly shut the machine off and told me to lie down on the bed in the room. Now, this is where I blame the hospital staff. Kind of. From past experience I knew that I needed to gradually wind down from exercise. I didn't know why, I only knew I would be ok if I could walk it off. I tried to explain this to the medical staff, that they should just let me walk around for a minute. They claim that they know more than I do about these things (some rubbish about spending years at medical school) , and this time they weren't having a bar of it. Now I don't know if you have ever had your body go into shock, but it's about the worst feeling you can have. I think that it must feel what it is like to drown. I still never felt that stabbing chest pain that one reads about, I don't think. Maybe I did and it was just one of the many unwanted sensations at the time as my body tried to shut down.
A few hours later I was in the operating theatre for a parts upgrade. Prior to me going in, I was given a chocolate bar. Not by the hospital staff, I should point out. Probably not the ideal food considering the circumstances. Anyway, I remember looking at this chocolate bar and deciding that I was going to leave it on my bedside table and eat it when I came back. As I rather liked chocolate, that meant that I had to come back. Of course that's a stupid rationale, but it's funny the dumb things that give strength and security at times. So that's what I did.
10 years on, and I haven't had a problem. Not in the same fashion, at least. Having a much better life, and knowing how to avoid stress before it becomes an issue, has contributed a lot to that. I've slipped up a bit over the past month, but I'm pleased that I have caught it myself. Owning the problem is the key to solving it. What I went through back then is not something I would recommend that anyone experience but I think that I'm a more contented person today as a result. Would have been nicer to have chosen another process to reach the same goal, mind.
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