‘I’m 49 and I’ve had a heart attack’

‘I’m 49 and I’ve had a heart attack’ that’s a phrase that I never thought I would utter.

But I have and I did.

I’ve spent the last 9 days in The Royal Oldham Hospital having come into A&E with chest pains. I’ve been there ever since.

I’m fine now having had an angiogram and ultimately having a stent put into one of the arteries in my heart but it’s been a hell of a week and hopefully I should be discharged later today.

This isn’t a post looking for sympathy. Far from it, I actually feel a lot better now than I have for sometime. It is post to ask you to stop and think. It is a post to ask you to act.

Heart attacks aren’t the exclusive domain of the elderly or the frail. They aren’t limited to those who smoke or drink too much or those who are overweight.

They can be caused by high blood pressure, high cholesterol and stress.

And how many of us even know what our blood pressure is or what our cholesterol levels are? I know I didn’t until this week.

So it’s simple really….

Go and get your blood pressure checked, make sure you know what your cholesterol is and then act on it. And for your sake and the sake of those that you love and love you, make sure you know what the signs of a heart attack are.

I wish I had.

Today is the first day of the next part of my life.