Lech - Interview 03

Age at interview: 78

Brief Outline: Lech took part in screening for unrecognised heart valve disease. He previously had a heart attack and some angina. The screening showed he had a leaky valve and he was offered a follow up appointment. We spoke to Lech after each of the two appointments he attended.

Background: Lech is a retired NHS salary and wages officer, originally from Poland. He has lived in Africa too, but has been in the UK over 30 years. He is separated and lives on his own. Ethnic Background/nationality' White Polish.

More about me...

Lech had a minor heart attack in 1989, when he was working as a salary and wages office for the National Health Service. He changed his diet and started to take more exercise. He had some minor episodes of angina over the next few years. Then in 2009 while he was visiting family in Poland he experienced chest pain twice. Again it did not feel very serious, but his cousin (who is a doctor) advised him to see his GP as soon as he got back to England.

 

Not long after, Lech received an invitation via his GP to take part in a research study looking at screening for unrecognised heart valve disease. His sister was also invited for screening and they talked about it together. Lech thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get his heart properly checked, and so he quickly said yes. We interviewed him after he attended screening. He explained that at the screening appointment, the doctor checked his heart using ultrasound. She noticed evidence of a previous heart attack, and also found that he had some leakage in a heart valve. Lech was not particularly worried by this, as he already knew he had heart problems. Even though he did not know much about heart valve disease beforehand, he is glad to know it has been picked up, and is confident doctors will recommend appropriate treatment or surgery if he needs it.

 

At the time of the first interview Lech was waiting for a follow-up hospital appointment. When we spoke to him for the second time, he told us that nothing new was discovered at that appointment. He said he would be keen to be screened again to see if there has been any improvement or decline in his condition.

 

Lech is in favour of helping with medical research, and had previously given blood to help with a research study on multiple sclerosis. He encourages others who are given such an opportunity to take part. He also thinks it is important for people to know if they have a problem especially as medicine has improved and there are possible treatments for many more conditions now than there were a decade ago.

 

He felt the doctor doing the screening was very skilled and kind, and explained everything well on the day. The only thing he would say to health professionals is that the letter that came afterwards with all the medical details of his screening results was too complex for him to understand, and looked like ‘black magic’ to him. Otherwise he is very satisfied with the experience.  

 

Lech couldn't understand all the figures and abbreviations in the results letter. He could have...

Is there anything you’d like to suggest to them about how that letter could be improved?

 

Improve only this, that we can understand, you know, what is written there because if that is written LVOT diam 2.1 CM, I don’t know what that means, and all this.

 

But anyhow, as I say, if somebody wants to know we’ll try to find. I didn’t go even to my GP to ask this. I just asked my niece’s son and he told me everything he knows about it.

 

So the only thing really would be the information that comes.

 

Yeah, the - I am waiting, you know. I am not really in a hurry actually. She say she will try to make appointment for me. I know that hospitals these days are very, very busy.

 

And the written information that you get. That could be improved a bit.

 

This can be, actually, because at least a few lines to say - not this letter sent, numbers and this, because this is black magic for me and, but still everybody who knows, wants to know, will go to, I could go to GP and say, “Can you tell me what is this?” Why to bother him if somebody else can tell me? He is busy enough. 

Lech had already had a heart attack, so at first he thought the invitation was because of that....

So when you got the letter from your GP—

 

Yes.

 

-- asking you to take part in this screening programme, what were your thoughts when you got the letter?

 

The first moment, first moment I say, “I know I have a little bit problem with my heart.” But second, after, I even talked to my sister, because she have also the same letter from the GP. They say anyhow they will check properly and actually, as a matter of fact, they did, because they find that I have now leakage valve, you know, what I never knew this before. That was the first time I knew that. She told me, “It’s nothing serious. A lot of older people have this leakage of heart.” Anyhow, I wasn’t worried and I know some, everybody has to die one day [laughs]. Sometime from this, sometime from something else, you know? That is life. 

Lech saw the heart valve screening as an opportunity to get a 'proper check-up' without having to...

So from your point of view when you were invited it was an opportunity?

 

Oh, yes. That was an opportunity.

 

That’s true. After I say, “Of course I will go. Why not? I have a proper check-up”, you know? Because to go to the GP, you know, they have to send it, and if it’s nothing serious, then - I worked for, as I told you, 25 years for the health service. I know, you know, they are busy people and I don’t want to bother them with something tiny. If it’s some small problem, why? That was my opportunity for a proper check-up.

 

And what with the letter was there some information about the project and what were your thoughts about the information you were given?

 

I think that it is very nice because a lot of people you are helping – people, you know, who are like me, like my sister. We never want to bother the doctors or stuff like this, just to go, “Oh, pain here, pain there.”

 

Did you have a chance to ask questions about the research before you took part in it?

 

No, no. They asked me if I volunteer and I say, “Of course I do it.” They asked me a few things, “Can you do this, this?” Whatever they asked I say, “Yes, of course you can do.” Even like you ask me now, I say, “I don’t mind.” 

Given that he has other heart problems, Lech wasn't very surprised to hear he had a leaking valve...

I didn’t know, honestly. I didn’t know I have a problem. I know something is wrong, because I have twice this pain when I was walking fast, and my cousin straight away say, “This is the heart. You’d better go and see a doctor.” Then but still I didn’t know I have a leakage, you see. I thought maybe, like before, I have angina, you see? But I am still on these tablets, you see, now. How you call it?

 

Statins? Are you?

 

Statins, yeah.

 

Ah, right. Is that, how long have you been on statins? A long time?

 

Oh, on statins, I am now about two, three - two years, I think.

 

Okay.

 

Not long, really, not very long.

 

Have you been taking anything else since the valve problem was discovered.

 

No.

 

Or not? No, okay.

 

No. Still I am taking one, one every evening before I go to bed.

 

Were you surprised that they found something?

 

Yes and no, because the doctor was a very nice one, really, and she was telling me what she’s doing and this, and she told me then. You know, I was expecting there is something wrong, but I didn’t know what, to be honest.

 

And how did you feel when they told you there was this thing wrong?

 

To be honest, I wasn’t worried much. That is one thing. And second, if there is, today’s medicine is so advanced that even if I would need something then they will give me tablets or even operation, you know, if I will need. Anyhow, still I am not a youngster and a lot of my friends - men, women - gone already.

 

So is there a sort of feeling of reassurance, almost, having found something, that now you’re being followed up?

 

Then I will know. Then if something is, I will have pain, this and that, then I will not say, “Ah, tomorrow I will go.” I’ll go today, straight away [laughs].

 

Okay, so yes, it’s made you more aware.

 

Oh, yes. Definitely.