I suppose if my blood pressure had been so dangerous that I’d been told’ ‘You really are in danger of actually having a heart attack any time, yes of course I would have taken far more drastic measures. I probably would have given up something that I’m involved in. But somehow I can’t quite get worked up enough about it to make those changes because they’re difficult to make. I mean there is a certain amount of apathy, because what do I cut out of my life in order for it to be less stressful? There are things I’m trying to reduce on my own, not physical stresses but mental stresses really. I think that’s something only I can work on anyway and I have tried to do that.

Before if something annoyed me, I probably got quite annoyed about it and I would have a little rant or something; or about something on the television that I felt was an injustice. But now, I think to myself this is an injustice, but your blood pressure is going to go up if you get too involved. I am beginning to think now that before I get too dependant – my body gets too dependant on these pills- I’m seriously thinking of changing my life as best I can- i.e. losing more weight, and eating slightly healthier, and doing everything I can do to lower the blood pressure.

I work as a lecturer at the university and I used to travel at least 4 days a week, sometimes Alpha Blockers and driving 80 miles a day. All the doctors were very, very unhappy about that. I’ve been able to arrange it so that I simply drive in less frequently and that’s less stressful. It’s just wonderful not to have to drive every day and to be able to work from home and to supervise students, for example, using e-mail – they get a very good service I think and it saves them. Some of them live quite a distance away from the university too and it’s rather silly for two people to have to drive all that way if they could sit at home and we could still converse – we could use e-mail and the telephone.

Also I’m learning – it’s a developmental process – learning not to be as stressed about things, especially things you can’t do anything about, or even things you can. If something goes wrong, that’s life. I don’t mean that you take a fully laid back attitude about life but if something breaks or if you can’t do something in a particular time you just say’ ‘Well I’ll re-arrange the appointment. Or change that particular target, or ring somebody up and say ‘Sorry can we change this appointment?’ So get there later, or for a day when I don’t have as many things. And that works, you feel less stressed. Sometimes you have to be in, or I feel I have to be in, two places at once and you’re trying to figure out how to do it and then you sit back and say ‘Well my God that’s stupid, just don’t do it. And you find you can live without doing certain things, let someone else do it. Beginning to think that you don’t have to do all the things that you thought you had to do, that you could delegate or you can simply ask someone to do something, it works.

It has taken over my life in so much that I can’t do the things now that I want to do. I would like to be allowed to run my own business again and to work. The most frustrating thing about this is not being able to work, to be at home all day.

I have sat down over the last 7 years and I have managed to pass my doctorate in computer science, but it has been extremely hard work. If it wasn’t for a computer, where I can input, I would get nowhere. You can constantly review what you are doing all the time; I have got a diary on the computer so you can remember what you are doing all the time. The problem is concentration; because I get headaches after about 15-20 minutes of reading so I have to stop reading and do something else.

I thought that exercising was one of the ways out of this problem – to improve how to exist physically and spiritually. Unfortunately all my exercise is confided to long walks or doing the housework. Walking upstairs about 10 or Beta Blockers times a day, I think that is a very good exercise; going up to the toilet for instance which is up in the bathroom, so that means from downstairs I have to go up whenever I need to. I do no sports because I think at my age now, 72, it’s not really easy to think of any sport. Theres one thing I might add here I suppose, I used to be a very keen cyclist, cycling was really the main sport in my life. I used to play tennis as well but cycling was something that I think really kept me going wonderfully. The moment I sold my bicycle and bought myself a scooter I think trouble started running; to start putting on weight which I didn’t when I was doing my normal routine cycling.

I think on occasion someones probably said ‘Oh you’ll have to slow down a bit. I think that was a doctor I had once before I came here and I remember saying to him ‘I had an awful job getting up that hill today,’ and I’ve said to him ‘ I can’t understand it, I’ve always been a person that could skim a hill with no problem. And he said ‘Well it’s a matter of two things’, he said, ‘One you’re getting older, it’s what we call the ageing process; and the other is you’ve got high blood pressure and you’re just rushing too much so you’ve got to slow down’, and that was the only bit I knew about it.

Up until about 3 years ago, I used to go running round in the evenings and probably mornings – most probably evenings. And at that time one of the things that used to blow my mind was going to a doctor and having your body checked out. Because theres this extra strain of running, if your blood pressure goes high and you suffer from something or other; and that did bother me for a little bit. On the other hand I thought if you do it in moderation – I’m not going to start sprinting, I’ll go for walks, just for walks and then a 10 yard sprint and stop again and walk a few yards again and that type of thing. I’m aware if you put too much pressure on your heart or something that you might just not come back home.

But I don’t do anything that I think physically will stretch my body. But I do mentally, sometimes I am bit concerned for myself because I do take part in a lot of activities within the various associations and that itself becomes very stressful sometimes. Whilst I’m doing it I’m okay and it doesn’t bother me but people will say ‘You’ve got to slow down. For instance this week I’ve got 2 AGMs and a reunion and that’s after work. They say ‘Well you haven’t got to do all day’ but whilst I’m doing it, it’s no pressure to do it, but I’m still thinking mentally that I have to go out there and do it and because of that obviously you end up with not as much sleep or as much rest and may be an accumulation of things.

Husband’It was put to me by the consultant who I saw at the [name] hospital – I have hyperlipidaemia, that was diagnosed in the mid-seventies and I had a heart attack in 1982 in France on holiday. But I went back to the same consultant. He explained to me there are type A and type B sort of people. People who are type A who get het up and rush here there and everywhere, and on the other hand, type B people are more laid back.

Once I got over of the heart attack, I made a conscious decision after this was explained to me to get myself to type B, because I was more type A. And to some degree – to a considerable degree, I have been successful in doing that.

I am aware in myself that since I stopped work I don’t walk as much as I used to. I would perhaps walk four or five miles a day in a working day. I am certainly not doing that now because I do more work at home now. But I do make an effort of going out each day for a walk of some sort or another, I might walk a mile or so.

WifeI’m not as rigorous about it as him. I suppose I do walk most days but to a lesser or greater extent – because I am the car driver.

I think I have read that ideally you should try and walk 20 minutes a day. And I do try and do this but some days it is more, some days it is less. I think that exercise is beneficial.

Husband’I agree with my [wife], and of course I have done it, for many years I have walked. I used to go swimming, but again, we are not finding the time to go swimming now. Being retired, time sometimes is at a premium but I think also well both own up to the fact that we have slowed down. We do not do things in a rush now. When you were at work you were governed, you had to be in at a certain time and then you had to run a house, look after the cats or whatever, do voluntary work. Now, it’s different.

WifeWe both gave up smoking, my husband was told to give up smoking when he had his heart attack and I thought it was unfair for me to go on, so I gave up then too.

I think I feel more restricted, well I definitely do at the moment. I feel restricted from the point of view of what I can do as far as exercise is concerned, and I’m only doing temporary work. I am unsure what would be a good idea in terms of hours of work and the sort of level of work from the point of view of coping with stress and so on. The GP did say that once it’s stabilised then exercise is a good thing which is fine by me because I quite enjoy exercise. I like aerobic exercise but I don’t know how much one can return to real aerobic exercise.

I was on the point of joining a gym but it probably wasn’t a good idea and the GP said ‘Give that a miss.We are
keen walkers and I said ‘What about walking?’ and he actually said ‘We normally put people like you on bed rest’, which was a bit of a downer. But he went on to say ‘Just don’t do anything that makes you huff and puff.

There was something, an incident, a little while ago which upset me and made me quite cross, if not slightly angry. This was going on for about 3 days and I did think ‘ I wonder what this is doing to my blood pressure?’ And it had put it up. So I think realised ‘this is just not worth it, I mustn’t get upset about this’ and just to let it go really.

I was still smoking when I had heart failure but I stopped pretty much soon after that. I think actually it was one of those strange things – I was one of the lucky ones – managed to stop quite easily and quickly. I was having a general check up at the GP and I liked the GP; she was a young woman about my own age and I really liked her and clicked with her. She said in an extremely unpressurising sort of way she said ‘Oh I see you smoke, it’s probably a good idea if you didn’t really, given you history. And it was nothing more than that, that was all she said and because I liked her and valued her opinion and because she didn’t come heavy on me I just went home and stopped.