WifeAt the moment because the doctor has just changed one of my medications, I am going fairly often – once a fortnight. She wants to monitor and do blood tests. I suppose my blood pressure seems to go up and down a bit like a yo-yo.
My mother has this terrible white coat syndrome – she is really bad with it. And I am a bit like that too. So, I might feel perfectly fine a couple of days before I know I have got to go for a check up for blood pressure but then I start getting worked up about it.

Husband’When we last went and had our blood pressure checked, last week, my blood pressure was 130/84,on medication. I’m not convinced – but we will see how things go – whether my blood pressure stays as it is. I certainly am not worried about it – not now.

WifeThe new one is Anapril malleate and also I am also on one Atenolol a day plus the bendrofluazide. But before that I was taking two Adalats and the Atenolol and the bendrofluazide. The doctor decided to change to one of the new pill. Really I think shes changed it from time to time when she feels that perhaps my system has got used to one particular medication.

WifeI think I started putting on weight as we took a joint policy decision on our life style when my husband had a heart attack in 1982. We decided that we would put ourselves first and not run around all over the place, getting het up about things. So, that’s when I started noticing my weight going up.

Ever since the hyperlipidaemia was diagnosed diet’s been a thing. With diet we tend to eat during the week on a low cholesterol diet and then have a splurge at weekends. The doctor has a go at us for drinking but you’ve got to have some pleasure in life.

Husband’We enjoy it, we enjoy wine, and the odd spirits as well. I certainly drink four units a day. No two people are really alike and one person drinking say a bottle of wine a day can cope with it easily and another person they are going to be ‘Brahams and Liszt’ – and it might eventually kill them. I think in the end it is a judgement that we ourselves have got to make on the information that we are provided with.

Husband’As far as the cholesterol problems are concerned, when it was first diagnosed, the [hospital] were pretty good but then I approached the British Heart foundation and I got some leaflets from them. But as it was affecting me, I’d read anything that comes in the papers or on the television, anything to do with heart problems.

You get to the point, well what more do I want to know? Am I going to change my life style? What am I going to do? Then I think, I am happy as I am – I go out – I know I am going to die. When that happens that happens, I will do my best to stop it! By and large I do listen to what [wife] and any other doctor tells me.

WifeWhat I also think is that every day it seems something new comes out about what’s bad for you – don’t do this and don’t do that. Then a bit later on you get a completely contradictory research. It is hard really to know where the truth lies and I suspect they don’t know really themselves.

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.

WifeThere are times when I do forget to take them – I don’t notice any difference in myself. Yesterday we went out for the day on a steam trip and I suddenly realised – we hadn’t had any breakfast before we left because we were having breakfast on the train – that I hadn’t taken my pills. But I felt perfectly all right all day and in fact I took them in the evening when I came home. I haven’t gone any longer than that however.

WifeObviously my husband and I talk about it, and I talk with my mother abut it quite a bit.

Husband’I would talk with office colleagues or other people, if someone had something similar to me. But then I think most of us do that – you talk. But I think I only met one other person who had anything similar to my sort of cholesterol.

WifeEssential hypertension has always run in my mother’s family. My grandfather had it and various of her brothers and sisters have it and my mother has it. Well she was diagnosed probably about forty years ago with it.
Interesting enough, my sister who is almost 8 years younger than me, she seemed for a long time to escape, then suddenly last year her blood pressure was giving problems. I think she went on a course of drugs for a bit. But since then for whatever reason her blood pressure has returned to normal and she is off them again.

Husband’Obviously I am aware, and I have always asked what the blood pressure was whenever it has been checked. I always want to know my cholesterol level and triglyceride level. But, that’s being an accountant I think – I like the figures! And I compare the graph.

I am very laid back about the fact that I have got blood pressure. But my wife tends to brood on things. Sometimes I have said ‘What’s going on girl?’ What’s up with her? I have to dig it out – what’s worrying her, what she is thinking about. She broods more.