Heart attack

Absolutely brilliant they were. Every exercise we did we’d be told to do five minutes on a cross-trainer or a bicycle or rowing machines and then after each exercise they’d, took your pulse and wrote it all down and I’ve got it all there. And then there was also there was, they advised us to walk during the day on other days and it started at, I think it was 10 minutes and then quarter of an hour, then 20 minutes and slowly build up your exercises. But they were very good, very good over there.

 

It was a period. It was over a period of. It was once a week for six weeks was it? It’s in the book in there, something like that. And then at the end of it the nurse said, ‘If you want to you can join another course but I’m afraid you’ll have to pay.’ But I didn’t mind that. And I go over there every Monday and it costs £2.65.

 

 

[laugh] But it is well worth it, well worth it, yeah. Well worth it.

 

We go for, it’s indefinite, just rolls on indefinitely.

 

And we go for one hour.

 

Very, very similar

 

Very similar and the girl that runs it is extremely qualified and she is a no-nonsense person and we all have a good time.

After ten weeks, there was some new classes, they're even funnier with [Name] who's unbelievable, you know, we call her Mother Theresa for me [laughs] and the people; one chappie who's old English man. He said, "Memsaab" to me. I said, "No I'm not Memsaab," so I grab his hand and put it between my legs, I say, "Memsaab don't have this," and he laughed his head off. He said, "What's the wrong word?" I said, "Memsaab is a lady, just Sahib is a man." [laughs] So that was a laugh. He said, so he said, "I'm not going to call you that name again." I said, "No you're not holding my hand next time." So and everybody there are brilliant and they're such a funny people and she said, "Sometime, because I give them a cake, some of them been there seventeen years, they don't want to go away," [laughs]. So that's how brilliant this place is, you know, the people make a friend and amazing atmosphere and so I miss it because I've been working or been having a hospital appointment on Wednesday that I haven't been for the last three weeks so I really miss them so hopefully I'm going next, not tomorrow, but next week, Wednesday.

There's one of team session and one the other one cardiac. I'm finished with the, the first, the ten weeks of programme they'd done, gentle exercise, getting the heart muscle going but now I'm doing cardiac training for, sometimes on my own in there or there's no supervision at all.

 

Brilliant. I feel really lovely because they give me a programme, like a little card so that all items are written on it what I should be doing so every day I do the same. I go, there's seven or eight machines so which I go circuit, like a circuit training so I do warm up and then I'd do this machine and then I'd do and something else then I'd go back to this machine and so on. And I do half way for half an hour and then I do a treadmill and then I do another half an hour on the other machines and I finish an hour later then cool down, cool down exercises and then I come home. Put the card back until next time. So very nicely organised.

 

[Cardiac instructor], a lady called [Name] who is a brilliant, brilliant…

 

 

She's an unbelievable person, such a wonderful lady and such a motivator and she promises you if you work hard she give you cake so we get cake [laughs] end of the session. So all the hard work you do you put it back. She's a lovely cake maker.

First you're scared of doing things and then you can't wait to do things so then they would say, "No wait. Don't do that just yet." I'd go, "Oh can I go and play golf?" and one of the chappies, [Instructor’s name], training me, they say, he's a golfer as well so he understood how much that pleasure you get playing golf and how important it was. And he said to me, "Oh I'll tell you what, what I want you to do. You can go and play golf but only pitch and putt. If you promise me that's all you're going to do I'll allow you to do that." So I said, "Yeah." So for three weeks that's all I was doing. Every other day I would go to the golf course and just putting and putting and then little pitching, three quarter swing, no big swing and then finally one day he said, "You can take, you can go and play nine holes and no more than three quarter swings. Whereas if you swing here you'll hurt” So I just, this little bit here. I said, "OK I'll do that." So that's what I started and then I came back to him, he said, "Nine holes?" I said, "Yeah." "Did you do the full swing?" I said, "I was naughty one full swing I took accidentally." And he look in my eye, he said, "I don't know whether you're telling lies or true," I said, "Well you, you work it out." "Did it hurt?" I said, "No." He said, "That's fine. If it didn't hurt that's OK." But when I came home after nine holes I ached so much. Oh I was in pain and I went to see a doctor because I was a bit worried. He said, "No it was muscle pain, not the chest pain. So your muscle because it's not there, they will ache." So I felt really brilliant, I thought, 'Fine.' It's the more you do exercise the better they will get. So that's, from then on I never looked back.

 

I play golf twice a week, sometimes three times depends what mood my wife is in [laughs] so definitely twice a week and I, there is no pain now, you know, I don't get much tired either so I come home and I really, really enjoy it.

 

I have a motivation. I always give myself some sort of target every day. When I go to gym and I go, I said to this girl, now that I a more reps so I do thirty of each, there's a seven machine so I do thirty this bending and up and down and with the legs, arms, curls and then I go on a treadmill for ten minutes and I do all of them in one go and without stopping and I can do it, last two occasions so I'm beginning to believe that my fitness is getting better and better. First I always wanted to run because I give myself , next year, March, April time there's a 10k in [place] for Run for Life and I love taking part so that's my next target so I've got to get fit for that next year. So I'm beginning to believe I can do that and first time last week I run for two minutes on a treadmill and I felt really brilliant for just two minutes so I'm hoping that each time I do it, a little bit more and get fitter and fitter and you feel confident because you think when you're running everything inside going to hurt but it doesn't. It really feels good.

So I think when you're given a second chance that you choose, you have a choice to do what you want to do and before that you did it, you didn't worry about it, you didn't think nothing would happen to me so it does change your life in that sort of way. So I appreciate a lot more now.

 

He thinks that's a good thing to have in your head and there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do that.  But I think it's nice to have that, I call it dream. I'm a great believer in dream, if you don't have a dream you're not going to have anything else you know but you must; whatever you want to do in your life, if you try hard enough you can achieve that and I done all my life the things that was impossible for me to reach and I'm thinking, 'Well if I don't try it, I'm not going to be able to reach.' I remember my grandmother saying that if you want to go somewhere, take a step. If you don't take a step you're not going to get anywhere. So every step you take, you get near your dream. So that's what I'm doing I'm taking steps whether I get there or not but so far I have managed to get there. Then when I get there I'm thinking, 'Where do I go from here?' So I plan it and think I'm going to reach that point so I do that. So I never, you know, have that sort of attitude thinking, 'I can't do that.' There's no such a thing as 'I can't.' You can do anything you want but you need to ask yourself, go and do it. You know what you want to do and do it. There's nothing you can't reach.