That first night at home I sleep on my own in a single bed, I think my family think that I may be
breakable.
It is amazingly quiet after the night time hustle and bustle of the hospital ward. I am feeling vulnerable as I lay listening to my heart, it is a wonder to me that it is still beating and I am still not confident that it will keep going. It is easy to believe each beat is the last and here at home there is no immediate medical support. Surprisingly I sleep well.
The following few weeks go by with my sights firmly on physical rehabilitation. I start by walking lengths of our lounge working up to enough lengths able to walk in the garden, confident that I can get back to the house. No, it is not an especially big garden, about 100ft long not a couple of miles.
Weather permitting I plod up and down in the garden until the question of walking the dog crops up. This worries me, we walk the dogs in our local woods and I am worried about the lack of mobile phone signals. I am still unsure about my heart, what if it stops again while we are away from help?
Eventually I pluck up courage and we leave the house, walking is a tad worrying, I have my mobile phone in my hand and over the next few days I learn where I do and do not have a mobile signal. My nerves twitch as I walk through the dead spots, heart still going? I think that this starts to amuse my family as they return to normal faster than I do. I think it will be a long time before I am happy to walk the dogs on my own.
