One could almost be forgiven for thinking one was in Heaven! This room is so white and clean and then RTE tv is on the plasma, definately not heaven. Amazingly feeling no pain but wires everywhere connecting me to the space age furniture, I must say I’m very impressed. Breakfast arrives and I get to choose dinner and tea, food is good!

I’m getting constant blood pressure checks from the very attentive nurses and then The Professor arrives with his entourage and invites Wendi back into the room to hear what he has to say. He wants to know
“how do I feel”
“Good”
Ok he says “I don’t think we can call it a heart attack, more indegestion, but there is a lot of damage to the arteries,(90% in one I found out later), which will entail a by-pass sooner rather than later, but if I’m careful would I like to go home?”
He did’nt have to ask twice about my ejection from “Heaven”. His number one reckons a meeting in two months, which he re-directs for a month hence. Another from the group is asking me details of the event and seems genuinely interested and converts to notes in his little black book. Wendi comes back later for me and after being wheelchaired down the long mile. I’m out into the open air and freedom.

Being home is good but just letting chickens out in the morning seems to bring on “The Pain” nowhere near as bad as the event but worrying none the less. still the minute I’m back in the house all pain is gone. This ‘feeling’ in the lower jaw is worrying. I’ve had it before,on and off, for a good while maybe a year or more when I have been out walking, but never associated with heart problems! It’s hard to describe, vacuous,hollow,a looseness of the teeth or maybe separation of them from the jaw, make of it what you will, but if your over 45 and you get a chest tightness with the jaw symtoms as outlined above, I would safely say you’re heading for heart problems. Aaron beats me to the chickens in the evening, and after a very peaceful night it’s time for bed.

The school run is on and Wendi wants company so we all set off to Villiers for the run, all very uneventful, but I feel useless not being able to drive for a whole month. I can live with that.

The smoking stopped straight away of course, but whilst I have been smoking for the last 2 or 3 years, with a few “off” weeks I had had a twelve year break from smoking which I started one night at a Disco I was doing in the Castletroy Park Hotel. I reckoned if I could give them up in the middle of a gig I could stick with it,which I did. Why did I start again? dunno but my excuse was the crucifixion of the smokers with the ban forcing them on to the streets at the front door of their favourite hostelry treated like Lepers, nobody was going to tell me where I could and couldn’t smoke! (Idjit!!!). Anyway without that 12 year break I don’t think I would be writing this epistle today. My Father,(Jack Sheriff Richardson),died at the age of 61+ and was smoking the day of his angina attack, followed by massive cerebral attacks when he realised he would be trapped in his non communicative limp body for the remainder of his life! He was dead within 48 hours of his first attack, his co-workers saying he was in very good form at the time.

My Grandfather,(George Moriarty)passed away aged 59, also at his workplace. He was part of the Moriarty Cab Company operating out of Kings Cross in London, and had a fare from the Strand out to Kensington just after lunch. The Young couple were just married and celebrating their honeymoon in London. Grandad was a true gentleman in every sense of the word, and having experienced my “Event” I can understand now how he may have put up with “the pain” without complaint. Never wishing to be part of Administration of the Cab Co. the running was left to his brother Will, George was more than happy to be behind the wheel rather than a desk! He must have been experiencing “the Pain” whilst picking up his fair in the Strand,and probably all that morning, knowing what I know now, he may have been suffering silently all morning. After crossing Trafalger Square and into the Mall, he would have passed Buckingham Palace and continued up Constitution Hill. He would have gone straight on to the roundabout at Hyde Park corner(no traffic lights in those days),and pulled up before turning left down to Kensington, begging pardon from his fare, his last words were;- “Sorry guv gotta pull in here”, he then slumped over his wheel and died. The Fare said he probably saved their lives that day and would always be thankful for the way his driver reacted to the impending catastrophé.

So I have 7 years on George and 5 or so on my Father, hopefully a few more besides! I have still a lot to do.