Firstly, I am not fully up and running with the intricacies of this site, so if anyone wants to share their own experiences, they can either contact me and I will explain how, or email them to me and I will add them in here.
Cheese.......well, like your average person, I never knew the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest. I wish I could have £1 for every time since my episode, that I had explained what happened to be greeted with, oh, a heart attack!
Now, that is a fair mistake to make. I joined Allied Dunbar in January 1995. Part of the joining procedure was to catch a plane from Newcastle to Heathrow, then a bus to Reading, then the train to Swindon and finally a taxi to the training centre, where over a two week period in order to be licensed to sell the various products they had in their portfolio you needed to sit various exams. One of the things I can clearly remember, was the definition of a heart attack, 'The death of muscle tissue around the heart as a result of a myocardial infarction'.
Now, I have no idea if that is correct medically, but it makes an easy platform to start from. Once released from hospital, a week or so later I had to go for an ultrasound scan on a Sunday morning. I was not able to drive at this point so my son took me. During the scan, the operative was quite chatty and we even talked pensions for a bit! At the end, she said I should not really tell you this, but you are clear. No muscle damage! So, switching hats, I immediately asked if that meant that I had not had a heart attack first.
My memory, which is verified by my wife was that without warning, I collapsed in my chair and stopped breathing. When my brother came in seconds later, I had no output so if I had of had a heart attack first, it must have been very quick! To the best of my knowledge, I went straight into cardiac arrest.
So, what am I rabbiting on about? Well, with a heart attack, it is not always how it appears on the tv with people clutching their hearts, falling over etc. How many times have you seen a hospital program where they monitor the patient, who is definitely unwell, and tell him he is undergoing a heart attack at that moment, and that it may last for quite some time.
Talking of tv hospital programs, one of the stats that they love to chuck at you, is that the survival rate for an out of hospital cardiac arrest, is 10%. I suppose this is based on oxygen not circulating for longer than about four minutes causes damage to the brain. Therefore, the window of opportunity to survive unimpaired is pretty small! I am going to have a think about how to write the next blog, because I want to try and talk through the effects my condition had on those who had to witness me lying on the floor. That means considering my disabled wife, my brother and sister in law, my two sons, one with partner. They will have their own take on things.
I cannot over emphasis just how much of the recovery one goes through is based on talking about the event. This is why some 30 months after my event I only feel able now to really examine what happened to me. I am very conscious that not everyone is comfortable in talking, and that also if it is the only thing you talk about then folks will soon stop coming to see you!
So, I called this blog something to do with cheese. All cheese is a type of cheese (obviously) but there are different tastes, in the same way that a heart attack and a cardiac arrest are two very different conditions, both loosely labelled a heart occurrence. If you read this and ever talk to some one who has had a cardiac arrest, even though they may not say, you will really make their day by knowing the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest!
And by the way, I never knew the difference either! Sorry for the cheesy link, but even though the song is nothing to do with the topic, it gives you a moment to reflect!
