A Diagnosis.

On 20th June 2012 after a few weeks of feeling a little unwell, my super patient wife finally managed to talk me into visiting my Doctor. I had been suffering bouts of breathlessness and a recurrent wheezing when I lay down in bed. My Doctor suspected from that first day that my heart was not coping. A subsequent chest x-ray showed that my left ventricle was swollen and not pumping well. I suffered a collapse the next day and was admitted to our local hospital. I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

Heart failure strictly speaking is not a heart attack, they are two separate things, though I’m not a doctor (I’m likely to faint at the sight of a hypodermic syringe) I have learned that a heart attack is the general term for a coronary occlusion or blockage to the heart (usually a vein or artery) while heart failure is generally damage to the heart muscle.

The left ventricle is the lower chamber which pushes the blood out of the heart, when the muscle is bruised or swollen this means that the pump is ineffective and can’t empty the chamber.

Wikipedia gives a good definition – “Heart failure is a global term for the physiological state in which cardiac output is insufficient in meeting the needs of the body and lungs. Often termed "congestive heart failure" or CHF, this is most commonly caused when cardiac output is low and the body becomes congested with fluid due to an inability of heart output to properly match venous return.”

This causes fluid to build up in the lungs (the congestive part) and if untreated will undoubtedly end in sudden death.

It is a serious and progressive journey through life style alterations and medical management. This is the journey my family are on with me. I have read many online journals documenting brave battles with life challenging illnesses and submit that the power of candid words clarifying and describing real feelings of humanity has a benefit to the writer.

Six months ago I was happily ignorant of any health issues and my wife and I were working towards my retirement. I was 47 and so I supposed that I still had less than 20 years or so employment and I had found the perfect job. I live in Perth, Western Australia and have been a public transport bus driver for about 7 years. After an initial steep learning curve familiarizing routs the job allowed a relaxed self managed routine and plenty of book reading. I enjoyed the interaction with people (typically a bus driver will greet as many as 3-4 hundred people a day) and loved simply driving in my open air office. Soaking up the legendary Australian sun.

From the first day of diagnosis and release from hospital I have been unable to work, my employers have kept my job open for me in the hope that I will recover and be pronounced fit to drive. Obviously having control of a vehicle carrying sometimes as many as a hundred passengers means that any fitness must include all recovery from the heart disease. This is sadly unlikely.

I have always had life insurance but unfortunately never took up income protection insurance and this has meant that the last six months has seen our sad decline into welfare and finally bankruptcy. We both try to keep positive and our grown children and other family really help us in practical wonderful ways. It was my wife that forced me to the doctors in the first place and then the emergency department of the hospital when I was dismissing the whole thing as the flu or something. “Wives Save Lives” and mine certainly did.

I remain upbeat and positive; I am about twenty years younger than the average CHF patient and in the last 6 months have managed to lose more than 10 kg. We both have made wholesale changes to our diet banning all salt and as much fat and processed foods as we can. I plan to write my progress towards recovery and some kind of return to work if I can. I don’t normally wallow in misery or bitterness at all. I am a very lucky guy who wakes each day and loves and is loved and can share the positivity of this.