My confidence in the NHS has been restored. And I hope it is here to stay.

It has been a long five weeks waiting to see a Cardiologist. The only advice I had received was from the Harley Street Cardiologist who had told me no more training just walking. So I have been doing a lot of that. The dog is delighted. But should I have been doing or not doing anything else? My questions were about to be answered.

Why is the cardiology department based at the furthest point in the hospital? Is it to designed to divert a number of patients straight to A&E? Anyway after a fairly long walk and a 1/2 hour wait I was in.

Some people can immediately make you feel confident in their expertise and competence and this doctor was one such person.

He did start with a fairly simplistic explanation of my condition until I reminded him that I had trained as a nurse and midwife.

What was fairly evident is that  decisions had been made before I entered the room. He was going to make a urgent referral to a named cardiothoracic surgeon  at Bart’s. I was also to have an angiogram in the next two weeks. A angiogram is a test where dye is is passed into the circulation via a catheter. X-rays are taken as the dye enters the heart to access the health of the coronary arteries. Whilst he doesn’t think I have coronary artery disease it needs to be excluded before I see the surgeon. These were decisions I had expected but given my GP experience I wasn’t taking anything for granted.

What is reassuring is that I don’t need any medication. I can put the pill box away. For the time being anyway.

Nearing the end of the consultation I asked him if there was anything I could have done to stop the calcification of my aortic valve.  As my mitral valve has mild calcification I am very keen to do all I can to prevent another major operation in the future. He strongly suspected that my condition was associated with my arthritis so there was actually very little I could have done to prevent it. It was reassuring to hear that it wasn’t anything I had done but at the same time I do feel rather powerless that it is just the hand I have been dealt.

However, it did get me thinking. A lot has been written about anti-inflammatory foods and the avoidance of food that can cause inflammation. So it was back to google. How would I survive without it! What struck me was that the heart healthy diet I had been following was almost identical to an anti-inflammatory diet so that seems to be the way to go. It also occurred to me that I didn’t have any pain in my fingers. Was this due to the diet or that I hadn’t been deadlifting, flipping tractor tyres in the last 5 weeks? I am going with the former.

So if everything goes to plan I should have surgery in the couple of months. What is so bizarre is how far my mind has travelled, if not my body, in the last five weeks. When I first knew that I would need open heart surgery I was terrified and couldn’t get pass waking up in intensive care with loads of drains and tubes coming out of my body and attached to numerous monitors. I have moved on from that. I am now concentrating on my recovery and doing little things like downloading music and podcasts to get me through the hospital stay.

Hopefully 2016 will be onwards and upwards. I can’t wait.