Update

I thought I would do a quick update post in case anyone was wondering where we are!  I should be busy writing sunny posts from Mojacar but instead we are at home. 

We got a dreadful shock just before Christmas when Richard went for, what we thought was, a fairly routine angiogram on December 15th.  He had been having a few chest pains and was a bit breathless so reckoned he would probably need a stent maybe two  However the result of the angiogram was that he needed a quadruple heart bypass!  He was kept in the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth until a bed could be found for him in University Hospital Southampton and an operation slot booked.  I went in to see him on the 22nd only to find him packing and getting ready to move.  We still had no idea when the operation would be but were hoping it would be before Christmas.  The following morning he was told that the operation would be after Christmas but in the afternoon he was told it would be the following day!

So on December 22nd Richard had his quadruple bypass.  I went to see him in the evening in HDU and he had wires, tubes and drains coming out of all sorts of places!  He really had no idea I was there though did tell me that he had dropped his razor that morning but it was OK!!  In fact he had dropped the hospital razor whilst shaving all his body hair off!  It's crazy really that he could come round and tell me that!  He moved from HDU to the Cardiac Ward the following day and started his long slow recovery.  He spent Christmas in hospital but was given his freedom on the evening of Boxing Day - four days after the op.

Once home Richard started to get better and now, two weeks on, he is doing a few light chores around the house and walking for about 30 minutes a day.  He has to wear a Posthorax Support Jacket for six weeks until the sternum is mended and then gradually do more and more so that by about twelve weeks he should be back to normal.

He has about a 12 inch scar on his chest, one from his groin to his ankle on his left leg and another one from his knee to his ankle on his right leg.  Most of the dressings are now off but there is still a bit of leakage from the long scar at the bottom of his leg.

It's quite frightening when I think that Richard was really a walking time bomb and could have had a heart attack at any time.  However that didn't happen nor did anything else that could have happened.  It's no use looking at the "what ifs" - they didn't happen.

Sadly we had to cancel our trip to Spain but we are hoping to have a week or two in the sun in mid March, when the twelve weeks are up.  But the good news is that Richard should be back to full fitness before the cruising season is upon us.

I did think about putting a couple of photos on here of Richard's scars - but, don't worry, I wont!