I wish John Crace and the NHS a good recovery | Letters
Thanks to John Crace for this article (‘Is this how I die?’ John Crace on his terrifying heart attack, March 21). It has allowed me to accept that although my two heart attacks on Christmas Day 2022 were mild and resolved with some stents, they were still serious. Surrounded by men in my department who were recovering from, or awaiting, various heart bypass procedures, I almost felt like a fraud – after all, a stent is at the lower end of the scale, or so I convinced myself.
I’ve laughed off the concerns of loved ones and friends, and dined on a good story thinking I’d had a serious respiratory infection that day, which was causing the chest pain and shortness of breath and symptoms that generally didn’t match my expectations. image of what a heart attack should be like.
Even my definition of pain conflicted with what I thought heart attack pain was. However, it seems that after hearing my news, others had thought about what life could have been like without me. This opens up a whole new can of worms about men’s health and how seriously we take it ourselves, brushing off illnesses, avoiding the doctor because it’s time-consuming (for them) and generally not wanting to get involved in our health.
John rightly points out the enormous diversity of healthcare and I completely agree with his observation that “when push came to shove, it was there for me”. It took a friend asking me how much more serious a heart attack had to be for me to accept that it had been a life-changing event – after all, Royal Liverpool University Hospital did that too. Thanks to John’s article, I am encouraged to continue on the journey of acceptance.
Nick McLeod
Ellesmere, Shropshire
In October 2022, between lockdowns, we moved to rural France. We went to Paris for Christmas, and on December 22, we were rushing to catch the subway when I experienced exactly what John Crace described in his article: a mild out-of-body experience and tightness in the chest. We continued underground, but after two stations I knew something was wrong. A medical student got off the train with us, reassured my family and gently held my hand as the firemen were called – in France the fire brigade always comes first. I was taken back up in an ambulance, and luckily a doctor took care of another heart attack across the road – what are the chances? He insisted that I go straight to the hospital, whereupon an amazing team placed a stent in the small diagonal artery that was blocked. I was 45. I don’t smoke, drink a little, am of average size and weight, and eat a lot of vegetables. Again: what are the chances?
Like John, I am extremely grateful for the people who saved my life that day. And now I’m quietly offering daily thanks to the heart-shaped aspirin I’ll have to take for the rest of my life, along with a statin. It’s not a cliché to say that experiences like this put everything into perspective. I wake up every day full of joy that I am alive and healthy. I rarely think about what happened, but this article so movingly described my own experience that I cried as I remembered asking that same question: “Is this how I die?”
Rebecca de Volkovich
Parsac, France
I am three months removed from quadruple bypass surgery. I’m 64, in pretty good shape, walking, doing tai chi and running. The aching pain in my left shoulder started last summer, went away, but returned late in the fall, along with pain in my jaw. I dismissed it as overload. A visit to the doctor prompted her to send me to the hospital. After eight days of preparing and waiting in the hospital, I spent six hours on the table. This was followed by a four-day hospital stay and then, thankfully, home.
I have to thank my wife, my doctor and the staff at two different hospitals for getting me off tests, new medications and the whole surgery. My wife cooked for me, helped me get dressed and kept me company at home for the first month. I have had nurses visit and now spend three hours a week with a great team in cardio rehab, slowly building my strength and endurance back up. Family, friends and colleagues have been very supportive and my eldest grandson takes me on walks, talks to me about great ideas and keeps an eye on me.
Now I imagine how I want to live the remaining years, how I can spend each day better, how I can make sure that everyone who loves me knows that I love them. I’m back to doing taiji with my online class, walking three kilometers or more every day and preparing to go back to work soon. It’s a slow process to regain the health I once took for granted, but as my mother-in-law always said, it beats the alternative. Heal well, John, and embrace the gift of a healthier future.
Joseph E. Charnley
South Deerfield, Massachusetts
I read John Crace’s account of his recent hospital stay after his heart attack. It is moving and reassuring to hear again about the excellence and loving care the staff put into his treatment, and makes the contrast all the more stark with the chaos and shortcomings of the surrounding infrastructure.
We need to radically reform our healthcare system, which is no longer fit for purpose. We need to separate it from the divisive and bitter world of politics and create a cross-party, cross-generational commission of the best experts we can find to reform it. We may have to face higher financial contributions through taxes, if we can afford them, but the principle of treatment based on clinical need without costs must be preserved. Without such intervention we will soon be looking at the ruins of the NHS and forced into the world of private medicine, where treatment is based on the levels of the patient’s insurance policy. We owe this to ourselves, our amazing healthcare workers, and future generations.
Fran Mortimer
Brighton
May I join everyone else in wishing John Crace a full and speedy recovery. He’s the first column I turn to every day, and the Guardian isn’t the same without him. As someone currently receiving chemotherapy, I can agree with John’s final comments about the NHS. I must have been seen by 100 people of different origins, skin color, ethnicity and religious beliefs. Without exception, they have treated me and each other with respect and good humor and are an uplifting reference to the Britain of the future, rather than the negative image painted by angry men like Lee Anderson.
Jonathan Harris
Poundon, Buckinghamshire
I was lucky enough to be treated at St George’s for heart problems. I simply run out of words to express my gratitude for the level of care I received there, it is simply world class. I’m not religious, but if I were I would thank God for the NHS.
Sean Fullerton
Shepperton, Surrey