I have thought of dietary changes. I think it’s possibly because of our family or because of the children, everybody is reasonably health conscious. So weve, I think, for the most part weve always had a good diet, we don’t eat a lot of fats or a lot of fried foods and theres a lot of cereal and fibre and fruits and vegetables and so on. But trying to improve on that is what weve been doing and we hardly drink, we have an occasional glass of wine. But I suppose it’s watching the cholesterol, things like eggs – fewer eggs and milk – and sometimes buying, some of these awful low fat things they taste awful but sometimes you either simply eat less of them or you switch to the low fat things.

I think theres a stereotypical image of the person who is stressed all the time, well I think there are several stereotypical images’ theres the organisation person, the white collar person, the person who wears a suit and is always on the go and having to sit in meetings and be there all the time and take work home and so on. I know theres also the person who is not necessarily a sort of a white collar worker and is perceived as being laid back, as theres all sorts of things inside which may be causing stress. The person isn’t doing that kind of ostensibly pressurised work where they sit at meetings and so on, and have to meet those kinds of deadlines, but just doing ordinary day to day activities like working in a shop or working in a factory. They’re worried about not earning enough money and whether they could pay for their mortgage or even pay to go on holiday, or do this, or get presents for their family at Christmas, or whatever; those sorts of people will have high blood pressure too. Then you have this other thing where people might have high blood pressure simply because it might not be only stress related, it could be other things, genetic things which they don’t seem to fully understand and I think doctors are beginning to appreciate that. I know even with me, at work people were surprised when they learnt I was in hospital and I had high blood pressure, because they thought I was stress free. Well that may have been the case, or give that impression, as it may be something else in here that’s causing the high blood pressure, it’s hard to say.

I think I’ve become far more tolerant now than I had been. I think it was with the cholesterol medication that I was having difficulty with because the doctor had prescribed different ones. When I took them I became almost ill – upset stomach, aches and pains in my joints and headaches. I remember there was one particular one, I think it was something like Provestate, Protovastate, or something like that, and I rang her up and I said ‘This is awful – I’m really suffering from this,’ and she advised me to stop taking it and I went back to an older medication because she said I had to take something for cholesterol.

Sometimes I’m a bit worried because sometimes I experience dizziness, sometimes I feel a bit lethargic and just feel peculiar. In the first instance I thought, well maybe it was me. Then I began to think I’m taking all these medications, about Alpha Blockers Alternative Treatments 7 different drugs, every day and have been over a number of years, that they do accumulate and they must have some effect so it might be because of those medications. The fact that I am getting older – I appreciate that – but I’m also on this medication which may be doing something too. And lately the new thing is possibly because of this Duxesoseen that sometimes I’m very, very dizzy. Especially going from if I’m kneeling, or sitting down very low, and then I stand up. It’s not the ordinary feeling of dizziness that people have when they get up sometimes because of lowering, low blood pressure. But this is sometimes very, very bad and so bad that I think well I might black out. Sometimes becomes an issue of mind over matter, I know this is bad and I just have to sort of grit my teeth until it passes. It just takes a few seconds but it’s uncomfortable, it’s extremely uncomfortable and it’s annoying if I’m away from home because I simply don’t want to pass out. So that’s a bit worrying and it might be because of the-as I suggested -the new medication I’m taking.

The doctor experimented with different medications and sometimes I got aches and pains from them. Especially the ones that – the statin drugs- that lowered cholesterol, caused aches and pains and sometimes headaches and listlessness and so on. So I had to stop taking particular ones and she found others. So it was not so much trial and error, it was sort of informed trial and error. Then a combination that seemed quite effective was finally decided upon.

I took my blood pressure a few times with the monitor and the consultant also took my blood pressure and we got the same reading, approximately the same. In fact the readings were so close that I was convinced, we were both persuaded that the monitor was quite accurate. And she used the ordinary sphyg manometer and she got the same reading. I tend to keep a record of my blood pressure because she asked me to and in fact whenever I used to go to both the consultants I used to give them a list of my blood pressure readings and so they could actually see whether there were differences over certain days, or so that they could try to determine whether certain things were causing it to go up or down. I tend to take it at night and it still seems to be high. Generally in the morning I don’t bother to take it because I assume it would be very high because like most people in the morning they’re rushing around and doing things, so I tend not to. Then if I’m at work I don’t carry it with me so I don’t have to take. It’s usually in the evening if I’m sitting down, if I’m relaxed, just before I go to bed, something like that, that’s when I tend to take it.

Sometimes I can feel the heart beating which is a bit of a nuisance. Sometimes – I don’t know if this is a symptom – I’m sweating, and I’m not talking about the weather when it’s hot but sometimes I perspire when I shouldn’t be perspiring. I know that’s one of the tell tale signs if you’re about to have a heart attack so it’s a bit worrying. Sometimes dizziness occasionally, walking somewhere or doing something. I used to have much more of that dizziness when I was walking, especially after I got out of hospital. I’d be just walking somewhere or just sitting down working on a computer or something and then all of a sudden I’m overcome by dizziness and it would just go away after a few minutes. I don’t have as much of that as before I had, but occasionally I do get that.

It’s very rarely that I do forget. The only time I will forget is if I’m away from home because in the morning I have them in the kitchen and theres a glass of juice and I always remember that just before I go. At night it’s upstairs just before I go to bed certain so it’s very rarely I forget. And then I have these pill containers that have the days so I tend not to forget that either.

Because it was something I had expected I honestly wasn’t that worried. I was concerned, but not that worried about it because I think now that I know much more about it; and the effects of high blood pressure, enlarging the heart, or thinning the heart muscle walls and the enlarging of the arteries. The fact that high blood pressure can do irreparable damage and that’s a problem. Having not known any of those things I was perhaps less worried, less concerned. So I thought this is something that is possibly curable and once you’re cured there were no ill effects but that’s not the case, there are lasting effects.

My parents have high blood pressure, my brother has and my sister also, so it’s something that runs in the family.

I went to visit my GP and, I think, just to have a general check up. I can’t remember what the issue was but I think perhaps I wasn’t feeling well or something like that. And, amongst other things, he took my blood pressure and noted that it was quite high, then asked me a series of questions. Then I was invited to come in again, I think the following week, and they checked my blood pressure a number of times. I was asked to attend the blood pressure clinic because it was obvious then that my blood pressure was much too high as far as they were concerned.

I was treated over a period of time, I went to the blood pressure clinic about once a fortnight and I was treated with a series of medications. It didn’t seem to affect the blood pressure as in it didn’t seem to lower it. So I was then referred to a consultant at the hospital. And over a period of about 7, 8 months the doctor seemed to be able to lower my blood pressure by trying out different medications and balancing them and experimenting with dosage, and so on, and it worked.

Theres a series of pamphlets which were useful in the beginning. The Heart Association pamphlets they produce – I think there are over a dozen of them – little booklets. I have those upstairs and I read each and every one of them about twice, they have all sorts of diagrams and they talk about other things like diet. They explain various procedures and they talk about medicines but not in as detailed a way as I thought I wanted to be informed.

There are American websites which give you a lot of information and I’ve been able to get diagrams of the heart. For example I had to undergo anangiography and I got full explanations. The doctors here were very, very good- I got diagrams from them and they drew pictures and so on,but I got a lot of things from the Internet and articles about angiography and also abstracts and full accounts of medications.

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.