Friday 26 January 2007:
Woke at six. Watched sun rise.
Had Jaspar, Alan, Mark, Ingrid, Liam, my girls, Anita and Margaret as visitors.
Saw Mark for only ten minutes as I had a surprise summons for a test. The first I knew of it was when a porter turned up with a chair for me.
Ingrid accompanied me upstairs to G8 for a sonic test on the arteries in my neck. My arteries turned out to be "thickening a little but otherwise okay" from Penny who was doing the test.
In the evening Ingrid, Alice and Liam went to the cinema and a meal at Gunwharf. I was pleased because I am concerned about Ingrid's health. I want her here with me but need her to be well.
It was interesting yesterday to hear about Cyril (Ingrid's father) and details of what happened to him. He died of heart problems when Ingrid was 13.
Apparently he collapsed at a church party and Enid had to attend to him without assistance from other guests. Eventually, Uncle Hugh (the family doctor) was sent for. Strangely he just took them home and left them with sedatives - things have greatly improved since those days. Cyril seemed to recover but, one morning as he set off to work, he collapsed at the top of their road on the way to the station.
My recent experience gives an insight into those last few minutes. Did he wake up in discomfort? Did he breakfast and prepare for the day knowing he wasn't really well but unable/unwilling to break from his routine? (I hope that it wasn't like this but, rather like the lull before the storm, he was blissfully unaware of what was to come). As he left the house and looked up the hill, did he have to grit his teeth with determination? When the attack came, I hope it was brief as I cannot contemplate the thoughts that mustpress in. I was scared on Monday at 3.30am and yet detached as if it was happening to someone else. The mind almost clinically observed the effect but kept an impartial distance. So, I hope, it was with Cyril.
(Jeremy, Ingrid's older brother, has reported "indigestion" so he must take care).
In the evening I was visited by Irene and Brendan, followed by Robin who stayed until about 9.00pm.
Robin and I talked about her father who had a heart attack in Singapore and had his angioplasty out there. We also talked about her hole-in-the-heart surgery to cure her migraines.
The realisation that the ICU in Southampton is run by Anita's elder daughter is strangely reassuring.
The fact that Betty Penrose had a bypass in her 50s after an attack on Crewe train station and is still here in her 90s is also very reassuring.
I didn't want to stay in hospital but now hope that the surgery willtake place sooner as a result.
I am afraid but not scared. I think my angina is unstable and am therefore appreciative that I have the QA team pressing my claim for an operation to happen sooner rather than later.
I have read a great deal of the available literature which, once again, I have found reassuring.
There are risks involved in the surgery. However, I have established that a general anaesthetic is used. I know this sounds obvious but it is important to know what kind. Robin and Roger both spoke of a general anaesthetic which completely knocked them out and had little after-effect. Robin spoke of one using morphine, which was less pleasant afterwards.
Is it cowardly to hope that if the worst has to happen, I would wish to die on the operating table under the surgeon's knife when hopefully "I", the conscious me, would be blissfully unaware? In those circumstances, upsetting though it would be for my loved ones (and my family has proved to be a thing of pride and joy over the last few days. They always have been but my view is much more crystal clear now), I hope they would eventually appreciate that that would be how I wanted it to happen. "It" being my "departure from this Earth". That expression now seems odd to me because the image I have has changed. I used to think of it as a journey down a tunnel to a new existence, where acquaintance is renewed with the dear departed. Unfortunately, that image was limited by an over-reliance on vaseline-smeared camera lenses, like those used in many Hollywood movies of the 40s and 50s. The greeting and reunion was heartwarmingly marvellous but I could never get beyond this opening chapter of a new existence.
"Departure from this Earth" is governed by my Christian belief in an after-life, a heaven. His Dark Materials, the trilogy of books by Philip Pullman (rather than the plays) provided me with a more coherent view of what could happen after death.
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I don't know if this is helpful or not (probably not) but my grandfather was diagnosed with Angina in his early 40s after an 'episode' like yours.
He had a complete disregard for all doctors and all their medicine (this was in the 1940s when it all had to be paid for and my grandfather was poor) and even when the NHS was founded he still threw the pills down the pan and continued to eschew all treatment until his death at the age of 85. (From nothing to do with angina of course!)
He was a hard drinker and a hard fighter and spent all his money on booze and horses. He was also violent to his family when drunk. (The reason my father left to join the Royal Marines at 17 because he was big enough to win their fights by then!) Grandad got into his last fight at the age of 81 with two lads at the local pub and came off better than them.
The reason he probably 'got away with it' for almost 45 years is why you will need to be careful though.
As I said, they were poor. His life had been hard agricultural labour from the age of 11 (think of the 'old Tom' character's boyhood in the film Akenfield) followed by being in the Royal Lancers followed by Army prison (almost killed an officer in a fight) followed by a career 'in service' as groom at various prestigious racing stables in Berkshire getting up at 05:00 every day to care for and even 'break in' thoroughbreds for the 'Nobs'. Even after this he continued to work at hard physical labour until retirement and beyond.
He spent a lifetime burning calories at a rate you and I can only dream about in circumstances that would only exist in our nightmares! (Hard agri-labour at the age of 11 to 16, North-west Frontier/Afganistan in the early 1920s with the Lancers, Army prison, 'domestic service' in the late 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, hard physical labour in Garrard's factory in Swindon in the 50s and 60s and working outdoors for the council into his 80s.
More often than not food was 'poached' by him or my father - when a boy - because there was no cash and there was no rich food or cakes or desserts or cream or cordon bleu or 'gastro-pubs' or Waitrose or Delia or ready meals.
Apart from the beer (alas) my grandfather consumed really basic food like boiled potatoes, boiled veg and a chop (or a rabbit ) and a snack was 'bread & scrape' and, of course, endless cups of tea.
His childhood diet (chased off family farm in Middlesex at age of 11 by his insane father with a shotgun and living feral, working on other local farms for a pittance until old enough to join up) then Army rations, then the depression and Wartime rationing and then post-war rationing all collectively took care of his diet for three fifths of his life, well into his 50s.
So I suggest a regime of waking up early, poaching some rabbits for Ingrid to casserole with lots of home grown veg (get rid of that patio set and do some hard work tilling the soil) join the Territorials, do a spell in the mountains of Afghanistan on horseback, and work until you are 80.
BUT (unlike my grandad) don't drink excessively and don't throw the pills away and don't end up in an Army prison for goodness sake!
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