"You will have to have an operation to replace or repair your heart valve", said the consultant.
Now that was the diagnosis expected, but still my mind was hoping for a different answer, even though I knew this is what the answer would be.
We live in hope that this is not really happening to me, yet inside you just know it is.
You have no escape, it's real.
I felt like many people before me, and no doubt like many more will feel in the future.
You want a cure but without the pain of an operation, hospital stays, recovery time, pills and the physiotherapy to get you "working" again.
Yet you do want to be cured.
Can they really put me right? I don't know, I get told of all the people who are back at work leading normal lives after this surgery.
But that is them and not me! I am always the unlucky one and it's bound to go wrong! But what's the alternative.
Just carry on with no energy and only walking just a few yards and stopping to get your breath back, or just having to watch, and not be able to do.
You know it will not get better, and you will eventually die without treatment.
This alone should make you keen to go ahead with the treatment, but the nagging negative thought stays right at the front of your thinking.
You could die on the operating table...
Heads you don't win, Tails you loose.
But the coin still could balance on it's edge, or could it? The choice has to be made.
Stay as I am, be useless and unable to do anything, or give your life to the Surgeon an ask him to do his best.
There is really no contest.
It has to be done.
So now you get the leaflets with all the pro's and con's of the operation, and if you have the computer, well, you are on the websites looking at all the information you can glean.
The end result is that you are now really confused, and have probably got in a state of panic.
Further to that, all the people who know you have to have this operation, will for certain know someone who has had similar, and how wonderful they are now! But this doesn't help too much as you feel they are a bit patronizing, and just embellishing the story of "George", who can run in the marathon now.
THE DAY RELENTLESSLY APPROACHES AND HERE YOU ARE- BOOKING INTO THE WARD.
You are then among some other patients, who like you will be having a similar operation.
Surprisingly the mood is buoyant, and many just can't wait to have their heart repaired.
They have, just like you, suffered enough.
A time is set and you watch the clock, but to your rescue, the pre-med injection saves all.
The dosy feeling it leaves you with, eliminates all fears, and you vaguely remember going to the theater.
Slowly things start to move through the mists, and the realization slowly enters your mind that it is all over and you have survived! But where is the pain? The thought of massive pain before you went in was something that you were not looking forward to, but miracles do happen, you are controlled with pain killers, and there is no pain.
Over the next few days you are fully awake, and out of bed (but nurse, I've just had a heart operation) it doesn't work, you will walk, you will do the exercises, and you will get better.
Seven days later you cannot believe that you are now on the outside of the hospital, being taken home to start your final stage of recovery.
And you walked out on your own, but better still you did not get out of breath! This all happened to me, in 2007, Thanks to all the staff, the Surgeon and his team, and ALL the people involved in changing my life, in fact MY HEARTFELT THANKS.