FOLLOW ON WITH REASON FOR HEART ATTACKS

SEPTEMBER 2016

Again another heart attack. Again I refused to stay.

My wonderful girlfriend in Queensland was phoning me every night pleading with me to sell my house and move back to Queensland. She said she could hear me dying over the phone. She still worked at the hospital where I once worked as well, and convinced me that she could arrange the required appointments with the specialists that I obviously needed. So I did.

Four days after arriving I presented to the hospital for an appointment with a Cardiologist Registrar for a cardio-echogram. While waiting for the results, the Cardiologist arrived with the results informing us that I was not going home ... I was a walking time-bomb.

Apparently I'd had Rheumatic Fever at the age of four (my parents were told that I'd had Measles .... I think in the 1950's there was probably a lot of misdiagnosed illness). Mum said that she could vividly remember sitting with me in shifts with Dad for two weeks convinced I was going to die. Must have been horrific for them as they had already lost one child.

Rheumatic Fever attacks the heart valves and my Mitral Valve was not opening so therefore no blood was getting to my heart, hence the three heart attacks. To this day I have to wonder why there were no tests carried out on me in Albury. Not one test whatsoever.

I was immediately admitted to the Nambour Hospital where I spent the next five days, then transferred to the Royal Brisbane Hospital for another week for more tests to ensure that my body was strong enough to undergo open heart surgery.

Eventually transferred to the Prince Charles Hospital for Mitral Valve Replacement Surgery with a replacement aluminium heart valve. After ten days I went home.

Two weeks later (after Joe, my cat, told me in no uncertain terms, that something was seriously wrong) I was back in hospital SCREAMING in pain, begging my girlfriend not to let anybody touch me. (She told me later that she was asked, 'Is your friend for real'? Her answer ... 'Considering she told jokes during childbirth ..... yes, it's definitely fair dinkum'. I can remember going into the MRI but not coming out. I was pumped full of so much morphine that the next two weeks are a blur. I had contracted a Golden Phaff infection during the heart op and my chest cavity was so full of the infection it had infiltrated my bones and had eaten half my sternum. No wonder I was screaming!!

I was transferred back to TPCH Brisbane where I apparently lived on morphine. Two weeks later (I think) I was back in surgery. Nothing could be done so the wound was left open and I was put into an induced coma, left on life support for 10 days while the infection was physically mopped out every four hours. My daughter took leave from her work and never left my side. (Coma nightmares ... whole other story).

Will continue in dot points.

🔹Woke in ICU, explanation, 'Sorry Mum, wrong place wrong time.

🔹Brilliant plastic surgeon performed Pectorial Flap ... my chest was strapped so tight I was unable to use my arms for 7 weeks.

🔹Transfer to closer hospital to home for rehabilitation and constant administration of the strongest antibiotics

🔹During the next 6 months the falls (RLS symptom) increased with the following consequences.

🔹Broken leg resulting in Total Hip Replacement Surgery. Broken back. Numerous broken ribs. The worst ... broken pelvis, no surgery just 3 months total bed rest.

🔹Depression set in, unable to leave bed for approximately 12 months.

That'll do for now, if replies show I will finish up tomorrow night.

Night all