Interview HF42

Age at interview: 39

Age at diagnosis: 37

Brief Outline:

Diagnosed in 2001 after multiple heart attacks. Quadruple bypass. Developed heart failure subsequently.

Background:

Retired manager' married with 2 children.

Thinks that having a heart transplant can be too risky if done too late.

I couldn't sit and say I deserve it ahead of him or her [laugh] you know, somebody now has to sit down and make that decision unfortunately, not a nice one to do but, somebody has to make that decision.

And course it may not work so why would you exchange at least what I've got now to dying shortly following a transplant. So it's not as if, I think some people have the wrong idea perhaps of transplants, oh it's okay I'll have a transplant it'll be all right. People still die with these things [laughs], you know, the improvement rate's improved, got a lot better but they still die with them.

Now okay, most of us maybe because they're very weak but it's like the chicken and egg situation, they've got to be weak, ill before they get onto it, and of course you then think, well they're too ill to go through it. Where as ideally if there were enough hearts you could probably do them a bit earlier, when they're stronger to get through the procedure and survive it.  

He describes Reiki healing which helped him to relax and reflect.

The person I went to see was actually a Reiki master as well, a Reiki healer [pause] and she did one Reiki exercise on me, mainly where I laid down and put the hands over the face and you can feel the warmth. Whether that's this magical transference from A to B or the fact that you've got a small amount of air between A and B and of course it heats up between the two, body heat, is what I think it is. 

You still feel that, but for me it doesn't matter where you think necessarily the energy comes from, whether it's a mystical being or whether it's from somewhere you can see, you can understand, it's about feeling relaxed and can you think deep and get in a relaxed state and I can. I've always been able to do that before, so I was okay with that, but it didn't, wasn't as if oh this was now hocus pocus, it makes no difference, it was just another technique, somebody else being able to do it to you. Just like massages, those sort of things can deeply relax you. 

And, and some of the sessions were okay in that it, I think that what was good about it was it was a set time to think, time out of here if you will, just to sit and perhaps just chat a little bit and then just reflect. So that was probably the biggest benefit. There wasn't anything that I came away thinking, 'Oh, I'm glad I did that because now I feel better about this', I don't think there was anything so startling about what came out of it.

If he shares his fears about having heart failure it will just worry his wife and overburden his...

I don't think I can fully talk to my wife sometimes about my concerns because [sigh] I think she overly worries about it. On some things she gets frightened and worried about it, and then I only get upset for her, which doesn't help me. So the point of trying to share it with somebody helping me, it just defeats it, all I'm doing is telling her something that upsets her and I'm thinking where was the benefit in that. That's not to say if there's something we need to worry about and do something about, that I certainly shouldn't be hiding something like that from her. But some of the concerns that you might just want to chat to somebody or you know, get off your chest, I wouldn't do it with my wife now because of having seeing her react.

Like if you imagine an ectopic before, 'come on let's call', just you know, and it, she, she just gets so upset and very worried and then that affects her and there isn't going to be necessarily a nasty outcome out of it, it's just I'm not so good. 'Oh my god, what', so I just, I just don't any more  because I don't see any gain.

Is there anybody you do talk to?

Not so many no, I tend to probably keep most of it to myself.

Some of my family now and then, but I tend to, one or two friends, but again you don't overdo it, you don't overburden people with problems really. So I tend to just mull it over myself [pause] and then feel sorry for myself for a day now and then, and then [laughs] just get on with it, just carry on. Because you get, I only worry about things, I try to concentrate on things that you can do stuff about, but other stuff there's not a lot of point and that hasn't been a change of my personality that's how I've always been, I think you're just a little more focused on some things now.