I felt really hurt and angry, angry that, you know, I’d had a heart attack as well and then I was looking back at my life and, you know, thinking, you know, why? Why did I have a heart attack, I didn’t do anything, you know, really bad, to excess. I smoked, that was the only thing that I did really, and worked hard.

No-ones, no-one had ever actually sat down with me and spoken to me about the heart attack or why I could have had a heart attack or, or anything like that, really. I, I don’t think theres enough, well for, for me personally, as a patient, I didn’t feel, think that I was spoken to enough about it.

I think a lot more reassurance about, you know, about life in general and life after the heart attack and, you know, what I can do and what I can’t do. You know, I think that’s what I need, I think that’s what you need after you’ve had a heart attack is reassurance.

The [local hospital], where she [wife] was first, they were unbelievable. They bent over backwards. I was quite surprised in fact that the nursing team there, literally if the nurse who was scheduled to look after Jen, if she wanted to go and go to the loo, or have a cup of tea or whatever, she couldn’t go until there was another nurse available to take over. So at all times there was a nurse by her bedside.

And, again, the same when we reached the [city hospital]. It was a lot more high tech there than the equipment they had at the [local hospital]. And again the staff there were just absolutely brilliant. The doctors and the nursing staff, any questions we had they went to great pains to explain, because there’s all this massive machinery around and they went to great pains to explain, Right, that’s her blood pressure, that’s this, that’s that So we could, if we went away from the bedside and came back, the first thing we’d do is look at the screen and we’d know exactly how she was getting on. Because they had taken the trouble and they didn’t make a mystery of anything.

But no, as I said, they made sure that, on every occasion, we knew what was going on. If they had to ask us to leave for any reason, when we came back in they’d say, Right, we asked you to go because we had to do a, b, c whatever. And obviously it’s not nice for outsiders to be there watching while they’re doing their tasks. But you certainly couldn’t fault the care on either side. They were both absolutely fantastic.

So what were the good things, what happened when you got into coronary care?

They explained, as soon as I was there they explained to me I was going to be tearful, it’s a big thing, and they explained all my feelings I was going to have. I’m going to do a lot of crying and they explained that they’re going to put this drug in me to get rid of the clot and everything, they just explained every inch of the way what was happening and how I was going to feel.

And they was right, everything they said, they was right and they was there, I mean in the night when I was frightened, they was standing at the side of my bed in the middle of night talking to me for an hour or two. They was absolutely brilliant, they was there answering any question.

Is that what he explained that first day when he came to see you or was that later on?

That was later on. They did it very well. They explained the gravity of the situation but not in a way that would have completeI mean every time, it was almost like a drip feeding process. And I mean, it might not work for everyone, but it worked well for me, because it enabled me to process little things at a time, and you know, the paediatricians came and explained what would happen if the baby was born now, at that point. The anaesthetist came in and explained what he would do, and how the decision would be taken as to whether it would be general anaesthetic or whether it could be done by spinal block and you know, if the extent of my bleeding was massive, you know, whether I’d have to be heavily sedated and in Intensive Care for a number of days. And I remember they did explain from day one the possibility of a hysterectomy and all of that sort of thing. So
It sounds like communication in the hospital was really good.

Excellent, yes.

Can you just describe that a bit more to me?

How they communicated with me?

Yes. What, what, how it worked.

Well they came to see me every, a registrar or a consultant came to see me every day. I mean some days I felt really lonely in there to be honest. Because they’d come in, any bleeding. No. Fine. And they’d go. And I didn’t require any, anything else. I didn’t require. I mean they listened to the baby every couple of days. But I didn’t need that, if I was in the community, I wouldn’t be having that, or the blood pressure checked every day. So there were some days when I thought, oh I could be anywhere. And they were incredibly busy there. But when I needed things, you know, it was immediate and it was spot on and it was compassionate and it took into account the whole family. They were amazing. And on my never ending list of things to do is to write to the chief executive, just, you know, people always complain and I justnbsp;

We had one incident where I felt a doctor had been, had come into the room and hadn’t introduced himself. So I had no idea whether he was a doctor or a cleaner. And that was the only time, the whole time in hospital that I’ve had any, any sort of remote, I mean, you know, the portering staff used to bring me a bacon sandwich every morning. Well, you know, I got a bit bored of their breakfast cereals. They were, I shouldn’t say that, I shall probably get them into trouble. They were outstanding and, you know, as I said before they sort of drip fed information which I found really helpful.

When there were bigger bleeds it was reiterated, so they went through the same procedure again. One time, it was, I think it was two, it was about two days before I ended up delivering. And a girlfriend was over there at the time, and this same consultant who gave me the first explanation was the one on call then. And he went through it again, and he drew diagrams of how they could do various hysterectomies and he left the room, and my girlfriend burst into tears. I said, What’s wrong And she said, This is so awful Oh, you know, you may be get so blasé about it, but you know, the anaesthetist were great, they all, you know, they explain things very clearly. Matter of factly, which is what I needed. And then when they felt I was becoming a bit complacent then they would term things perhaps more strongly. But you know, ultimately everything was left down to me to you know, to the point where I wanted to go out for d