''It all started when I had a heart attack. I woke up during the night feeling terrible, with a severe pain in my back. I thought that this was just a worse episode of my usual back pain, so took some painkillers. On my way back to bed I felt really dizzy, then must have collapsed. My wife called an ambulance and by the time they arrived I was conscious again. They took a heart reading and said I might be having a heart attack! Now this was a surprise, as I thought that heart attacks caused chest pain going down the left arm; apparently they usually do, but can occasionally give different symptoms like mine. I then got taken into hospital where they took some blood and said that the results showed I had had a mild heart attack.

I stayed in hospital for a few days and was asked to do an 'exercise stress test'. This is where I had to go on a treadmill for about 12 minutes whilst my heart was monitored. This showed mild changes only so I was then discharged home. The Consultant wanted to be sure about things, though, so he arranged an angiogram''.

''Not too bad really. I was asked to go into hospital for the day to have the procedure. After being checked in by the nurse I was taken from the ward to the theatre room for the angio. It was under local anaesthetic, which involved a small injection in my right inner thigh which made the skin go numb. The specialist then made a small cut in the skin and pushed a long wire up into the thigh artery. This just felt like a strange pushing feeling.

They used dye to look at the arteries around the heart; when this was injected it gave me a strange warm feeling in my head that lasted a few seconds. They took x-rays and after a short while the wire was pulled out. Firm pressure was put over the thigh area for about twenty minutes and I was then taken back to the ward''.