Earthquakes and a heart attack, all within days of each other. There is nothing quite like someone close to you suffering a heart attack to put a little old earthquake into perspective, among other things...
While Christchurch was facing the aftermath & aftershocks of the earthquake, I found myself face to face with mortality.
At around 12.30am last Wednesday morning I found myself with an Ambulance in my driveway & paramedics in my lounge. My partner Allan (known to some of you as the mailleman) was, very calmly, in the throes of having a heart attack. It's not really possible to describe how someone can 'calmly' have a heart attack, but he did. His controlled manner, even when I could see & hear he was in considerable pain, kept me calm & thinking clear enough to do everything I needed to do quickly & efficiently without giving way to the panic that was quickly rising in every fibre of my body.
To be honest I didn't need to do much apart from make the choice of not listening to his request of 'dropping him off at Accident & Emergency because he had a chest pain' & instead dial 111.
I can't praise the manner & actions of the emergency operator & the paramedics highly enough.Thanks to everyone concerned he was in hospital & being treated within 30 minutes of the first pain which had woken him from sleep. Within 12 hours he had undergone an angioplasty & had a stent placed in the left anterior descending artery to his heart.
He's recovered so well from this that he came home on Friday, with a new lease of life.....
Why am I writing about this here, you may ask. Simply because I have been somewhat preoccupied, inconsistent in responding to emails & answering questions, remembering to publish blog comments & pretty much everything in between. My mind it seems has turned into mush, I have the concentration span of a gnat & less focus than a blindfolded bat. I know that I'm in a state of serious forgetfulness when I forget one of the first dances I learned at dancing & fail to notice red lights!!
My apologies in advance for any vagueness people may encounter .
I'm hoping it's temporary :)
"Boom Boom Goes My Heart" - or as line dancers know it, "Chica Boom Boom"
