"A story of Excellence"

For several days I had been feeling nauseous and under the weather, with a buzzing in my head and a worrying gradual decrease in my resting heart rate from its normal 38-40 (I run 3-4 days a week and walk the other days) to 32-33. My GP advised me over the phone to go to A & E immediately in Eastbourne which I did.

I was triaged and upon seeing my pulse was 33 the nurse arranged for me to be seen by the doctors who said I needed to be admitted to the Cardiac Care Ward as they diagnosed Atrial Fibrillation after taking blood, X-raying me and listening to my heart.

After a 4 hour wait in Resuscitation a bed was found in the 6 bed CCU ward where I was duly covered in wires and sticky contacts to the machine measuring HR and to a defibrillator.

The consultant wanted to observe my stats overnight  to see if my HR stabilised as my heart had an irregular beat from the ECGs they had done on me.

The next day on his rounds the consultant advised that as there was no improvement he recommended I be given a pacemaker to stabilise the heart and that given junior doctors were on strike the earliest opportunity.

Monday came and around 12 midday I was told that the pacemaker would be fitted that afternoon and at 10 to 2, I was wheeled into the "lab", where I was given the procedure under local anaesthetic. The pacemaker crew were absolutely world class every one of them was empathetic and professional and total operation time was around 30' with no pain or discomfort.  The only downside was that they did not have Led Zeppelin on their play list. 

After the Op I was wheeled back to the ward and my fellow patients were astounded that I was back so soon. I was discharged 24 hours later and this morning, Thursday morning I went for my first post Op walk of 2.5 miles with my wife and our collie. 

The culture at the hospital from porters to lovely caring nursing staff to the consultant to Triage to the pacemaker team was incredibly positive, warm and life affirming. 

Matron even had a reassuring word with me.