It’s 4 whole years since I was gifted the utter joy of a heart attack.

Being the carefree type I had walked around with a collapsing artery for 4 days, blaming it on drinking too much tea, eating too much ham, indigestion and a whole host of other potential causes before I was made to sit down and phone 111. Being made to make that call by my lovely partner Angie and not continuing to look for causes likely saved my life. My initial response had been to say that I would go to work at 6am the following morning and when I returned I was going to get out on my mountain bike and pedal as hard as I could  until I hacked up whatever was causing me the irritant in my chest. Its a good job I didn’t as it would likely have been my heart that got hacked up and I’d have been found in a ditch with my mountain bike lying on top of my no doubt lifeless body.

The problem for me was I ignored all the normal heart attack warning signs. Why did I do this? Well that would be because I didn’t have any of them! Not even one, that was what I found so scary. Everything I had been told or everything that I had heard about what happens when you have a heart attack hadn’t happened. I hadn’t got the pain down the left arm or the pins and needles you hear about, there was no metallic taste or excruciating crushing pain. I just didn’t have breath, I would walk just fine and then run out of steam and get this weird, detached feeling in my chest. They were the effects I felt and none of those were a heart attack in my head because I’d never been given a leaflet on that! Because I am the person I am I didn’t acknowledge that anything was happening. Except it was, I basically had a myocardial infarction (Posh word because I read that leaflet) and I didn’t know this was even a thing so I carried on as normally as I could.

I know when it all kicked off though. I was recording my guitar parts for the trio version of the Bears Den song “Agape” with Nick Parker, Maelor Hughes and me. Nick had asked me to be involved as part of his Covid Live stream series and I was working out the song in different and strange tunings whilst I was trying to record it. We were desperately late in getting the parts to Nick and my laptop, a 127 year old steam powered HP was continually dropping me out of record with nowhere to drop in. This frustrated me somewhat and after numerous outbursts of profanity I slammed the laptop shut in a rage of blue language and accidentally smashed the screen. After all these years I still hadn’t learnt that valuable life lesson when losing ones temper it usually costs one a few quid and for me, it cost me a new laptop and delivered me a very big wake up call to boot.

I decided to leave it and come back to the recording later opting to go clear my head with a swift walk round the village with Frank Dog, my Chihuahua / Jack Russell cross mini dog. It was cold and I felt a bit shivery but nothing else. As I walked I oddly belched a lot and then had the detachment feeling I mentioned above, I thought it was a bit weird but I did the usual thing and dismissed it.

Over the next few days I found myself walking less and less far round the village before the feeling returned until I couldn’t really get far at all, I dismissed it as a minor health blip and whatever was “on” my chest would free up and I’d be fighting fit again.

4 days later Angie came for a walk with me and Frank Dog and I inched myself round the usual walk so as not to alert any concern, I almost made it too! Just as we got back home I felt the strange chest “thing” again and I said I would sort it tomorrow on the mountain bike. I was told to stop being an idiot (or something similar) and to go and phone 111. A short 20 minutes later and 2 lovely paramedics had attached 497 wires to me, linked me to a machine and had sprayed something weird in my mouth, When asked how I felt I replied that I felt better than I had in the last 4 days so if they could see their way to leaving the spray I’d be fine. They said sadly that the effect of the spray indicated I had suffered a heart attack and in their words The only place you’re going is A&E”

I snuck a book, a charging cable and my vape into my rucksack and got into the ambulance. I’d still not really processed what I’d been told and as this was Covid era I went alone waving goodbye to Angie and Frank Dog as they stood in the doorway. The first sprinkling of fear started to fall in my little personal bubble. 

When I got to A&E I sat in the waiting room for some time before I was called in to give a blood sample and then got sent back out into the waiting room to sit and listen to an angry man shouting at the receptionist because he was in pain and was sick of waiting. I went outside for a vape to escape this and he followed me, bringing his loud mouth with him.

Me – “Alright?”

Him – “What do you think? The service here is S**t”

Me – “Ahh well. No money is there, It’s not the receptionist fault”

Him – “You can f**k off mate, they should have seen me ages ago”

Me – “Alright pal, calm down. What you done?” – His hand was a bloody and grizzly mess roughly bandaged up

Him – “Was at a party, stuck my hand in a toaster and when it started to burn I tried to pull it out but it was stuck in there so shredded my fingers”

Me – “Sounds like you’re a bit of a prick then mate” 

This was the point when he decided to threaten to hit me so I went back inside and waited for my name to be called instead of taking a thumping.

Soon enough though I was a confirmed as a member of the UK’s finest heart attack club and tucked up on a ward wondering what had happened in the last couple of hours. I slept pretty well for a short time until they wheeled another patient in who just happened to be the toasted hand fella. He shouted a bit of abuse my way and I responded in a similar fashion and then I went back to sleep. I was exhausted.

I’ll not lie, I felt scared. I’d had no warnings that I recognised, I was suffering something major to an integral part of my body that maintains me being alive and worst of all I was alone. I honestly thought in that minute that I was going to die, I was petrified, and I cried. It felt like hours before I got any news on what was happening and when that came it was minimal, just to tell me I was moving upstairs while they worked out what could be done. Some time later I was moved and I waved a sarcastic goodbye to the toaster idiot and his poorly pinkies, he was still ranting as I got in the lift to my new ward. I had slept / dozed through his rants without noticing him, my brain was elsewhere. My was questioning when and if I would see my daughter again, when would we do some of the adventures we’d talked about, I questioned whether Angie and me would get to drive to Scotland again and do the stuff we’d planned. I wondered if I’d get to walk my dog again, and if I actually died who would look after him and who would tell him what happened to me when he was confused because I hadn’t come back, I always came back for him, what would he be thinking? What the hell am I going to do if I die??? I can’t die can I? Surely this is just a bump in the road and all will be fine?

I have spent my entire life making plans, around music, personal life, work life, everywhere. Things I want to do and see, to feel and experience and I still had a thirst to do more, this was too soon. I felt a very real wave wash over me and I was drowning, I was going to die and the world would carry on and I’d not be a part of it anymore. I was in a limbo, a kind of holding space and I didn’t know where I was going, how, when or to what. Truly the most horrible, lonely and frightening time of my life.

Now it’s 4 years since I first felt the feelings in my chest and the World is a different place now for many reasons. I was looked after impeccably by the wonderful people of the NHS and operated on by what reminded me of the cast of Friends. 6 young, attractive and jovial people who didn’t look old enough to be responsible for sticking metal tubes into my heart while showing me what they were doing on a big TV, especially considering they did this through my wrist. They laughed and joked about the fact they didn’t need to resort to going in through my groin and made me feel relaxed while they extended my life.

It was after an extremely short stay in Papworth hospital I got to go home. As I left the ward I gave the young Australian guy who had conducted the operation a ceremonious gift. He got my vape.

Me – I have a gift for you Bill

Bill – Ahh thank you, that’s amazing………. Oh

Me – Yes, it’s my vape, I will never vape again

Bill – Ahhh ok……. Want me to bin it for you?

Me – Yes please Bill, thanks for saving my life

I had a sneaky suspicion that Bill was disappointed with his gift, for me it was poignant, for him it was a crappy old vape.

I’ll never forget the messages, the mentions in live streams and the support I, my daughter and Angie received, and I will never, ever forget the fuss Frank Dog made of me when I walked in the house. Till the day I die I will remember seeing my dog smile.