Patient Stories - Heart Disease

Mr Eric Davidson

On the 28th of January 2000, I was with a large number of colleagues having a retiral drink in Perth’s Patrick’s Wine Bar. Three days later, I retired from Scottish Hydro-Electric (SHE) after over 32 and a half years service. It was an informal, enjoyable and relaxed occasion. After all, I was a fit and healthy 55-year-old and I was ready to embark on a new phase of my working life but little did I know what was coming.

On the 24th of April 2000 - Easter Monday – my wife Ruth and I went for an after dinner walk. During this walk, I developed a severe pain at the back of my throat and a visit to the doctor later in the week diagnosed high blood pressure and probable angina.

A week later, I had another attack and ended up spending a night in the hospital. Angina was diagnosed and an appointment arranged with a Cardiologist. However, events took on a life of their own to such an extent that in May 2000 I spent 23 nights in seven different wards of three different hospitals in two cities including eight in a Coronary Care Unit.
 
My angiogram highlighted the extremely serious constriction that I had in one of my arteries but unfortunately ruled out angioplasty. In the end, I had to have an urgent double bypass operation on the 26th of May 2000 and I was finally discharged from hospital on the 1st of June 2000.

On the 28th of July, nine weeks after the operation and 13 weeks after I had first gone to my GP, I was back in Patrick’s Wine Bar for another SHE retiral drink. It was the first time that I had been in a pub since my retiral drink in the same bar on the 28th of January. It was strange to think how much my life had changed between the two visits. In some respects my problems and all that went with them were a distant memory while in other respects it was as if they had only happened yesterday.

Three weeks later, I was at a meeting in Bonn and three weeks after that I was working in Seoul in Korea . Since then I have been four times in Korea, once in Kazakhstan, six times in Bonn, twenty six times in Russia – Orenburg, Vologda and Belgorod as well as Moscow – eight times in Serbia, once in Iran, three times in Arnhem and nine times in Kosovo as well as having taken many foreign and British holidays. I also have been and am involved in various cardiac initiatives including a Heart Scanner Appeal, Heartstart and a Cardiac Support Fund.

For a long time after the event when I met people who had known me from before the year 2000 the first question was always something of the order of “It’s good to see you looking so well, how are you feeling?” Only now have I reached the stage where they ask me what I am doing and where I am working although the second question is invariably “How are you feeling?”.

My main feeling now is of how lucky I am to be alive. Considering the seriousness of my problems, I feel that I got off lightly. The problem was quickly found and repaired before any damage was done to my heart and physically I am almost as fit as I was before my troubles started. What surprised me were the psychological effects for which I was totally unprepared. The realisation that I was not immortal, going from almost never having a day’s illness to serious heart problems and major surgery was not something that I was well equipped to handle. I am now more anxious about my physical state than I ever was in the past. Is any minor ailment the symptoms of some more major problem? Probably not but I still wonder. The whole episode was a total shock to me especially as, of the risk factors associated with coronary heart disease, I had only one viz genetics.
 
What is often forgotten is that a major illness is also a traumatic experience for the patient’s family and in my case, I had the total and unflinching support of my family – they were magnificent! It was thanks to them and of course the skill and dedication of the medical staff that I have survived as I have done.

Mr Eric Davidson

21st September 2006

To view other heart disease patient stories go to the DIPEx website.

Last updated: 09/09/2010