Even when you're in the middle of telling a story the story itself can change. Like this one has in the few days since I finished writing that last chapter about the middle 1970s. As my mind and writing were moving onto what will come next in the main story everything got stopped by the sub-plot. A sub-plot I haven't needed to mention so far in “Seventy: A Life” as there wasn't much going on. Until now, when it's stopped me from thinking about very much else since last Tuesday's hospital conversation with a Cardiologist.
I'd walked to Broadgreen Hospital expecting to be told "I'm discharging you" or at least "We'll need to see you occasionally but just to keep an eye on things." Imagining the testing and monitoring I'd been having for most of this year might be over now. But no. Because the main words I was hearing as the bottom dropped out of my expectations turned out to be "worrying, narrowing" and "the main valve." Followed by "We'll need to repeat some of the testing. And then we'll have another conversation." About my heart.
So I need to explain what's been happening to my heart.
The short version with plain facts is this. I got up at 2am one night late in January to go for a wee, blacked out, collapsed sideways onto the bedroom floor and was unconscious for the next several minutes until my wife Sarah, woken by the noise of me falling, managed to bring me round at the same time as she was phoning the hospital. An ambulance and three emergency paramedics soon arrived, tested me for heart attack and stroke possibilities - and it wasn't them, thankfully. Then took me to the Royal Hospital for three days, where broken ribs all down the left side, some in two places were soon confirmed. And the heart and everywhere else scanning that's continued was begun. That scanning and me walking around with various monitors stuck to me sometimes suggested these various possible causes for my collapse and injuries (some back teeth and a foot were also involved) over the following months of careful after-care:
• "Might be just one of those things, a sudden drops in blood pressure, could happen to anyone" as I left the hospital;
• "There's a slight heart murmur, slight but we’ll investigate it” a few weeks and measurements later;
• Then "Too much blood pressure medication for your reduced weight" after the first time I saw the Broadgreen Cardiologist.
This last being easily my favourite and what had got me thinking he'd now identified a logical and obvious cause of all the trouble, meaning I'd soon be discharged. Now I was on the lower medication and feeling so generally well.
Well I wasn't discharged was I. And I walked home from Broadgreen last Tuesday feeling all the fragilities of this troublesome 2023, mental, physical and mortal, present and regathered around me.
And now? I've got appointments, for a repeat echocardiogram at the Royal in January, then what he’s calling “a conversation” with the cardiologist in March. And I'm feeling ok, mortal but monitored let's call it. And if, as I’m suspecting, serious even surgical treatment of my heart turns out to be needed, well, as Sarah and Clare both say, better to find out and get it dealt with in this careful and thought about way than any kind of crisis alternative. Also I haven't entirely given up on the over-medicated hope, not yet. I doubt that very much, but the hope's still there and could yet emerge from the testing, monitoring and attention to come. Which I'm grateful for. Deeply.
So this has been the news from the sub-plot. Maybe not so much a sub-plot any more? But let's see.
Next I'll be getting on with the story about housing and music and Liverpool. The things my life's been mostly for and about. After a short break from writing while I fold this new knowledge into my life.
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Sending you best wishes Ronnie. I’m enjoying being interrupted by your posts and glad to hear you are staying positive at a worrying time. It’s good to pay attention, but not let it interrupt the purpose of your life!
Oh isn't 70 fun.... I'm pleased to hear you are getting monitored closely which is key. Much love, Michele