Friday 1.

                                               Friday, 15th March, 2013.
                                               ____________________

It's good to be home.

I've had a heart attack. We went to an Antique Fair at Long Melford Village Hall on Wednesday the 6th of March. The day started well. Ruth helped us load the car - well to be honest Ruth loaded the car for us- ticker's been playing up a bit lately, and Ruth insisted on doing the heavy work. Set off just before seven a.m.   and a mile or so up the road we slowed down and watched a lovely, big, old barn owl hunting along a dyke - they're getting rare in our area.

Had a goodish fair. bought a nice IVORY prisoner of war work (probably made at Norman Cross in Huntingdonshire around the year 1800) figure of Napoleon, and sold it on later in the day , together with a good deal of other goodies. After we'd packed up and set off homeward (but before we left Long Melford) I felt a sharp pain across my chest.
Now - I'm quite familiar with the dull ache of angina - but this was something else. I carry a glyseril trinitrate spray and used it. It didn't touch the chest pain, which got worse; so when we got home Ann 'phoned our G.P. who told her to 'phone the Ambulance immediately. Flashing light and bells job - can't clearly remember the rest of Wednesday evening.

 I'm now wired up to various monitors that buzz most of the time and vary this by making the occasional vaguely rude noise.  Busy writing this up on the Cardiac Care Unit in Bury Saint Edmund's Hospital  on Friday evening, and waiting for a slot to come up at Papworth Hospital, where I'm booked to have an angiogramme plus whatever they deem advisable.

It's a relaxing lifestyle, although being wired to a machine by a fairly short lead can be rather frustrating, and very minor worries occupy more of the mind than you'd think possible; e.g. how to manipulate the short lead enough to be able to reach and draw the curtains round the bed sufficiently to ensure a measure of privacy should the occasion arise ( the company being mixed on the cardiology ward - one way and another).  I'm told I should press the bell  for a nurse to draw the curtains and supply the necessary utensil, but I'll be BEGGARED  if I'm going to !!...... SO THERE.

The staff here are generally very pleasant and obliging people, and, being nurses, tend to have a sense of humour that chimes in very pleasantly with mine.  Last night I was cared for by a night nurse - Luda- originally from Russia, a delightful woman who speaks perfectly good English, with only a trace of accent. We spent the small hours putting the world to rights - hope the World appreciates its luck, and feels the better for it.

The food here is of the nursery / comfort variety - a little bland perhaps, but perfectly edible, and there is a choice - it generally tastes rather of whatever it is that's been ordered.  I've served time in all three hospitals in this area (Ips., Col., and B.S.E.) and, in my opinion, this one is streets ahead of the other two in the commissariat department.

Saturday 9th March.  (sorry, this is becoming a journal - a very long one, I'm afraid- of the last few days. Please bear with me).

A very nice little Chinese nurse has finally decided to allow me to be unhooked from the monitoring machinery for a few minutes, occasionally. This means that I'm allowed to go to the bathroom for a REAL wash, and to use the facilities.  "DON'T LOCK THE DOOR; AND DON'T BE TOO LONG!" she instructs me.  As far as I'm concerned  this is a real advance and a major event. Thirty minutes later another nurse - this time an Indian lady- has just told me that I no longer need to use a cardboard bottle, and may now walk to the loo unattended. This too frees me up tremenjous, although she then qualifies  this by giving me full instructions on pulling the alarm chord in the bathroom .  It's very odd how minor advances of this kind assume such major importance in hospital.   Just before lunch is served daughter Kerry turns up and talks to me while I eat.  We swap all the family news, and discuss ways and means of me continuing in business, whilst at the same time "taking it a bit easier" - a phrase I am beginning to heartily dislike.  In fact (and in fairness to her) Kerry comes up with one or two sensible suggestions.

At about two p.m. Kerry admits that she has, as yet, not lunched; so I pass on a reccommendation of the better canteen (there are two) on  the premises and she departs to repair this omission.

AT two thirty Ann turns up accompanied by youngest daughter Liz, who has brought her two youngest with her (Matt who is twenty and Beth, eighteen) and deposited them in the canteen with Kerry- and a coffee apiece.  There is a strict rule on the Cardiac Unit of a maximum of three visitors per patient, and for the rest of the afternoon my five visitors alternate/revolve around this rule, then leave Ann and I to ourselves for twenty minutes or so. They all return to say goodbye to me, and everyone has gone by about four thirty (after which I nap for about an hour) - been a good day, and felt an oddly busy (?) one, considering I've spent most of it horizontal.  I think that I've felt that I'm the host of this gathering, and that therefore I must keep my visitors entertained.

 Ann's calling me up to supper. I'll try and complete this later. I think 'later' might mean tomorrow, and/or the next day.