But the biggest person it was affected was my wife. She took a long time to sort of release the apron strings, to let me go and walk on my own, let me go and get the paper, do the mile or two mile walk round the lake.

I’d have to carry a phone, I still have to carry a phone and she likes me to still ring when I’m at the farthest point and she is concerned and it, it’s had more of an effect on my family I think than it has on me.

They’re the ones that really bear the brunt of these and they’re the ones that you have to thank really because it’s them that worry about it more than yourself. Yourself, at least in my case, I think I can do anything now, I can, I can be anywhere and do anything. Your family still worry.

My wife I think now is getting, I mean if she lets me go, she lets me go and play golf with my brother. But it’s the effect on them, especially my wife, is the big effect of heart attack.

Is there anything you think that helped her to be sort of be happy about you doing more things.

Yes the things that, that encouraged her was (a) that she spoke to the people in the rehab, the physiotherapist and the, sister who’s there and they said, ‘okay this is what can happen to you know, you’re doing fine, don’t worry about it. Shes spoken to the local practice nurse, because I still go and see her now and again. And again shes said the same thing.

Shes spoken to the surgeon who said, ‘I’ve fixed him now, hes okay, I’ve had my hands all over him, I’ve sewn him up. Hes now got three bypasses, hes got three arteries, or they were veins of course, now that are pumping through and hes good for a bit longer.

So it’s positive information to her. Shes read all the books the same as I have, all the information of things you can do, time scales of when you can do it. So those are the things that have really given her, is the support network around as I say the rehab, the local doctor and the surgeon that did the job. So those are the things that have reassured her, and I think now she thinks I’m okay.

My wife was obviously very, very concerned and the mere fact that she was told I had a heart attack, made her believe I was next to death’s door. And to bring her round to believing that there isn’t, you know, you can make a very good recovery was a real, a real benefit, not only to her but to, to me as well.

I mean, even now she occasionally says ‘oh don’t lift this or don’t do that. I say, ‘come on I do twenty five press ups, I weigh 75 kilos, what am I doing here, lifting 20 kilos, you know. So it’s a big worry and even, I’m, I have a lot of medication, blood pressure and a number of things which fortunately don’t seem to result in any side effects which is a big plus and her, she sees it as her function in life to make sure that I take it.

And I do naturally take it in the morning, I take some in the morning as part of my usual routine, shaving and, yes I do shave, and cleaning teeth and so on, and in the evening when we have supper, except then I sometimes forget, but she doesn’t [laughs].

I think he went through a lot more than I did in one way, because there was nothing he could do to help me. If, in the past, something’s gone wrong and he could help me but with this, he couldn’t.

He couldn’t help me and he didn’t know how to help me so he felt, he felt he couldn’t, he was useless sort of thing, because he could not put something right for me where any other time, I’ve got a little problem or something hed say, ‘now calm down, well sort it.

And this one time he couldn’t sort it and he felt, he couldn’t do nothing for me and he felt useless. He couldn’t, he wanted to mend me and he couldn’t and you’d catch him having a little cry here or cry there. And that used, I’d say, ‘oh, don’t come round me crying, I can’t handle that.

And with the support group we tend to talk to the carer’s as well because they do go through it. The carer’s go through something as much as the, you know the person who’s had the heart attack or the bypass. The carer’s have to go through all this and they don’t know, they don’t know what to do.

Well one of the things was she always made sure that I got my tablets in the initial stages, breakfast in bed before she would get me up, because I did need assistance to get washed and dressed. As time went on, just getting me out. One of the things that the doctor said was get out in the car and have a ride out.

Going out in the car and I had a wheelchair for a period because I couldnt walk far. Getting me out in the wheelchair, even though I might sort of have a ride in the wheelchair and then walk a little bit afterwards because being near the coast, we often used to go down to the coast at [the nearby town].

And just being, monitoring everything that I did and making sure I did what I needed to do to try and make progress and not let me just sit and forget that there was a world outside of a heart attack. But she was absolutely brilliant.

Well first [laughs], first of all if you moved much you know they were a bit worried [laughs] they’re sort of keeping an eye on you all the time [clears throat] but when they saw that I was coping a bit better each day then it gave them a bit more confidence.

I think it was worse on my daughter because every now and then you have a bad day and of course she would be there so shes born the brunt of it really, shes been great. My family obviously were nervous first of all but when they saw I was coping with it fairly well, it helped them too.

My daughter was the biggest worry [laughs] because she would get my bad moments, you know and when the others had come it would sort of brighten me up.

Without a doubt my wife is probably the one person that’s [pause] taken on a lot of supportive role that people don’t see. The actual, from the actual medical side of course, it’s the staff and the treatments that have pretty much helped me survive and maintain me.

If you stopped the drugs tomorrow, I’d probably die fairly quickly because my heart wouldn’t survive on its own. But that’s only part of the story. Reducing the stress, reducing the load in terms of things that I do, is taken on board and so obviously by my wife to a huge degree, with having two young kids as well.

And that’s sort of like the unwritten side in that, I’m fortunate to have that. There are people who are single, there are people that are married where they might not even get that, they don’t have that kind of support and perhaps as a, as a country we take that for granted and as a society, in that weve looked at things like it’s too much detail but the kind of support that you get with DLA [Disabled Living Allowance] etc.

I think they always assume that because I’ve got my wife that shell do everything for me and that’s a little bit unfair on my wife, what if she wanted to go out and work full time and have a career, it’s now assumed she can be around supporting me.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a totally fair assumption, of course you marry me for sickness and health and all the rest of it, but I think as a society, as a society we should have probably better broader care.