And, you know, one of the things that I found, I do have anxiety and I’ve done quite a lot of CBT where I’ve managed to overcome things that make me anxious. And one of the things that I do is, if it’s not in my control, stop worrying about it. Because that is the thing, that if it’s not in your control, then you need to just worry about things you can do stuff about.

And so, breathing is something I can do stuff about, but I just need to wait for my heartrate to drop. Because there’s no point in trying to do breathing, normal breathing while your heartrate is heading towards 130 because that’s just not going to work. So, you know, that whole kind of trying to get your breathing under control, it’s really a mental fight rather than a physical one for me. I’m guessing for anyone really.

And I think that’s the thing that I…that’s my biggest take-away from this whole situation is, you know, that I rely on myself to achieve improvements in my health and my stamina. But also, I am the solution to…you know, I can either decide to pant and breathe through my mouth or not, as the case may be.

I wasn’t really able to talk to my sister particularly because I would get out of breath too quickly and, you know, I just wanted the doctors to call her and stay in touch with her. And one of the staff was saying, well, this is actually the first thing on our patient charter that we aim to keep the family informed as much as possible. And I found that it was only if I was really on them that they actually remembered to make a call. Because my sister was having problems getting into the phone system and getting in touch with the ward or ICU. That was the…because, you know, it’s easier for the hospital to ring out on the off chance hopefully the person that they’re calling is available. But that was very frustrating I think for my sister, as well as for me.