Mea Culpa
Plus a Big Thank You to the NHS, for Picking up the Pieces
This is my first attempt at writing in quite a while. I’d planned to be a regular contributor, but was knocked off course a bit by some health issues. Excuses, excuses, I know. So …
I had a heart attack, then a cancer diagnosis and tomorrow’s the day I get to decide whether to go ahead with immunotherapy.
It’s been a blast, though - and through it all, I feel wonderfully well looked after; by my lovely wife, my boys and their partners, my siblings and friends and - of course - the good old NHS. Because I’m lucky enough to be living in the UK, none of my health care has been a financial worry. I shudder to think what the out of pocket expenses might have been elsewhere:
2025 - a coronary stent, a week in hospital, cardiac rehab and all the associated medication.
2026 - an ear lesion removal, a wide area local excision with sentinel lymph node biopsy, CT scans, histology, the time and expertise of an ENT consultant and a plastic surgeon … the list goes on.
It all began in my son’s gym - I’m convinced I overdid things a bit. I realise now that things have to be headed in a certain direction artery-wise before a heart attack kicks in, but I believe the trigger for it happening then, rather than later, was pushing myself to the limit. Well, beyond my limit, as it turned out. I was really surprised that chewing an aspirin didn’t help and nor did repeated use of an angina spray.
Anyway, once I accepted that I wasn’t going to shake off the chest pain and the other, classic symptoms, my son drove me to the local hospital - thank you, Conor!
Having a stent fitted was a hugely enjoyable process - it felt great to be included in the cath lab staff’s banter, even though they were gently mocking me “Yep, we get people in from the gym all the time. Never straight from the pub, though - you should reconsider where you spend your time!”
Turns out, having a 2.5 x 48mm Cruz stent inserted via the wrist can be hugely entertaining and educational. When the stent is expanded, the chest pain is similar to the one that brought you in … but only perhaps a third as severe, and much briefer. Watching the wires snaking along the ghostly looking vessels up on the vast screen is fascinating. Popcorn was the only thing lacking.
The cardiac rehabilitation process involved meeting a lot of very kind people - mainly nurses, but some personal trainers as well - and learning to reign myself in. Lots more walking and rather less strength stuff than I was used to. And cleaning up my diet a bit (pork pies might be a significant contributory factor when it comes to clogging up the old arteries, apparently).
The next episode wasn’t related, I don’t think - but again, was mainly down to me ignoring things I should’ve been rather more proactive about. I’d had a little lump in my earlobe for months, but as it grew and started to attract comments (thanks to my nephew Ben for “if that thing gets any bigger, it’ll need its own postcode!”) I decided to seek advice.
I thought it was just a sebaceous cyst, as did the surgeon at the time of its removal. Histology told a different story. A 23mm thick nodular melanoma. Highly mitotic. “Potentially life threatening.” Oops. Perhaps I should’ve got it looked at six months earlier.
Again, though, I found something to chuckle at in the delivery of the news. I’d gone along thinking it was just a check on how the wound was healing up in the aftermath of a cyst removal. Because I was hugely impressed with how neat a job it was, I was thanking the surgeon profusely, saying how good his handiwork looked, when he interrupted me to say “Yes, it is very neat, your ear has healed up rather well. It’s a shame it has to go in the bin.”
And so began the next round of surgery and scans and meeting up with a whole new team of NHS clinicians. Without exception, I’ve found them to be calm, kind and patient people who genuinely seem to have their patient’s best interests at heart. The knock on effect of which is to make me want to be a good patient. Which is part of the reason I’ve been reading up a bit on immunotherapy and trying to come to a sensible decision. The world needs sensible people and I’ve never really thought of myself as being a particularly sensible person. But I’m eternally grateful that the National Health Service is full of them.