Just this awful, I don’t know, feeling that your heart, it sort of almost feels as if it’s far too big for your chest. And it’s making this terrible, terrible and it’s very frightening. I mean the phrase cardiac neurosis comes to mind because you really do think you’re going to die. It’s horrid. You know, I would say to anyone who’s starting out with AF, it will feel horrible. It will feel really scary.

I suppose I get used to it in the way that anyone who had a false leg or a, they’d be used to it but, at the same time, they’d know it was there wouldn’t they. I am used to it, yes, because I’ve had it for so long but I know it’s there. And sometimes it makes me start to cough because I, there’s this funny sensation as if there’s a lump there or an obstruction and so you want to cough and get it out of the way. But it isn’t an obstruction. It’s your own heart misbehaving.

I can only speak about how it affected me. It affects people differently, but as one person put it at a conference, you feel as if you are dying. There is no way you can operate. It is totally consuming, the feeling that you get. Yes, that you’re floating off into some sort of outer space somewhere. And that you just cannot function. You cannot think properly. You cannot think logically. You’re completely disorientated and you have to fight for every sane action. It’s profound.

Far more than just a physical sensation?

Oh, yes, it affects everything. Well, it’s obviously the brain reacting to what is going on. One of the things is, what is happening to me and, therefore, the rise of fear, which is a natural reaction to any human being if they’re experiencing something that’s totally alien. And then it’s a question of how do you react to the fear? How do you control the fear? I’m a Christian and, therefore, I prayed about the situation and the fear was taken away, but the effect on what do I do next? How do I make a logical decision? How do I make any decision? And is the decision I make going to be effective? All these things are going around in this swirl of disembodiedness. It’s a horrible experience.

It’s hard to know if it’s the disease or, you know, because it because it all happened round when I was about fifty, now I’m fifty six. You know, that age anyway things are changing without a doubt and you’re not very sure if it’s just a natural you know, consequence of being fifty odd, and most people, you know, things seem to change a bit around there, I would say, not everybody but a lot, or is it because of the disease. And all I can say is I’m definitely more tired than I was before.

When I had an attack, I knew it was coming. I had not very long, just a second or two but I knew it was that was the beginning.

It was in [hospital] and I sort of felt it happen and I wakened up and I was sliding down the door post, I had my back against the door post and I was sliding down and ended up on, that was the end of it then. Can’t remember any more problems. Probably didn’t say anything to anyone about it because I was going home and I wouldn’t have been going.

Eventually, I found a job of part time in one of the stores in [city]. It was just a morning cleaner really, four hours a day, eight until twelve, that’s all I was doing. But as I say, even that I was finding hard, the last couple of months I was there because I used to work say an hour, an hour and a half and I’d have to sit down again because I’d feel exhausted. That’s one of the symptoms of AF unfortunately. You feel exhausted and tired all the time through it, you know, because what happens, when you get an attack of AF, it takes so much out of you because your heart is a natural pacemaker, trying to get it back into sync. When it does go back into sinus node it means that, you know, it’s take so, it’s just like running up a hill. You run up a very steep hill, you feel tired and breathless. It feels exactly the same. You know, you feel so exhausted after it, after an attack, you know.

You’re aware of your heart pulsating and it puts pressure right round about your waist. That’s where I feel most of the pressure. Sometimes it goes through to my back. Sometimes it’s up my arms. It makes you feel dizzy because the oxygen isn’t getting round the body. And you very often have cold extremities.

I get breathless and that’s the main symptom. I just don’t have enough oxygen to do what I want to do I think it’s the thing it is. Even simple things like walking and trying to make a phone call I’ve learned that people think I’m about to collapse on them, friends listening to me when I’m walking making a phone call. Even on a piece of flat ground, it sounds as though I’m out of breath and whatever even though actually, to me it feels it feels okay. It’s that sort of, something I’m used to.