If you were given a time machine, what would you tell you former self? The time machine only works once, and the message only goes to you.
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Mine would be to read up on the symptoms of a heart attack.
www.nhs.uk
For me, it felt like indigestion. I had just run for 10 minutes, and was burping every 5-10 seconds. I would sometimes get indigestion, which went away if I used an over the counter tablet like Windeze.
This time, my left arm felt heavy, and my left hand felt tingly. Those were red flags. With hindsight, I should have called 999 there and then. They would have sent an ambulance. The ambulance would have done an ECG, and as soon as they had seen that, it would have been blue lights on, and straight to hospital.
Instead I walked 20 minutes back home. I tried calling 111, but they only wanted to talk to me if I was in a specific location, not walking. I got back home 5-10 minutes later and called 111 again. After 20 minutes, a GP called back and recommended I get an ECG. It was a Friday evening, so I didn't fancy waiting for an ambulance, so I got an Uber, which came in 10 minutes.
At A&E, I checked in, they measured my blood pressure, triaged me, and took an ECG. Five minutes after that, I had a tap on the shoulder to go through for treatment. I was then the centre of attention. 30 minutes later, I was in the Catheter lab, having an angiogram and a stent. They made an incision near my wrist and passed a wire with the stent up my arm to the coronary artery. The stent opened up one blocked artery.
This was about 2 hours 30 minutes after the heart attack. In that time, some of my heart muscle died. There is enough left that still works adequately, but it won't grow back.
The big risk is if the blood supply to your heart means that it stops beating. The British Heart Foundation say there is a 1 in 10 chance of survival if that happens and you aren't in a hospital. That improves to ~ 1 in 5 if it happens in a hospital.
I now have 10 tablets to take each day.
I've since read a couple of good books.
A Second Act is by an A&E consultant where each chapter is about a patient who recovered after being clinically dead.
Live Forever? A curious scientist's guide to wellness, ageing and death is by a biomedical researcher who goes through the major causes of death (heart disease, cancer, diabetes etc), and looks into the ways to avoid them. It won't be a surprise that there are some common themes: a low fat, low salt, low sugar diet, some exercise, low stress, and no smoking or alcohol.
The diet thing is a bit of a pain, given that fat, salt and sugar make food taste nice. Spices are still allowed though. I do find it easier to stick to a diet, after my heart attack.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Mine would be to read up on the symptoms of a heart attack.
Heart attack
A heart attack happens when blood flow to your heart is blocked. Find out about the symptoms, what to do if you think you're having one, causes, treatments and recovery.
www.nhs.uk
For me, it felt like indigestion. I had just run for 10 minutes, and was burping every 5-10 seconds. I would sometimes get indigestion, which went away if I used an over the counter tablet like Windeze.
This time, my left arm felt heavy, and my left hand felt tingly. Those were red flags. With hindsight, I should have called 999 there and then. They would have sent an ambulance. The ambulance would have done an ECG, and as soon as they had seen that, it would have been blue lights on, and straight to hospital.
Instead I walked 20 minutes back home. I tried calling 111, but they only wanted to talk to me if I was in a specific location, not walking. I got back home 5-10 minutes later and called 111 again. After 20 minutes, a GP called back and recommended I get an ECG. It was a Friday evening, so I didn't fancy waiting for an ambulance, so I got an Uber, which came in 10 minutes.
At A&E, I checked in, they measured my blood pressure, triaged me, and took an ECG. Five minutes after that, I had a tap on the shoulder to go through for treatment. I was then the centre of attention. 30 minutes later, I was in the Catheter lab, having an angiogram and a stent. They made an incision near my wrist and passed a wire with the stent up my arm to the coronary artery. The stent opened up one blocked artery.
This was about 2 hours 30 minutes after the heart attack. In that time, some of my heart muscle died. There is enough left that still works adequately, but it won't grow back.
The big risk is if the blood supply to your heart means that it stops beating. The British Heart Foundation say there is a 1 in 10 chance of survival if that happens and you aren't in a hospital. That improves to ~ 1 in 5 if it happens in a hospital.
I now have 10 tablets to take each day.
I've since read a couple of good books.
A Second Act is by an A&E consultant where each chapter is about a patient who recovered after being clinically dead.
Live Forever? A curious scientist's guide to wellness, ageing and death is by a biomedical researcher who goes through the major causes of death (heart disease, cancer, diabetes etc), and looks into the ways to avoid them. It won't be a surprise that there are some common themes: a low fat, low salt, low sugar diet, some exercise, low stress, and no smoking or alcohol.
The diet thing is a bit of a pain, given that fat, salt and sugar make food taste nice. Spices are still allowed though. I do find it easier to stick to a diet, after my heart attack.
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