Heart 3

Waikato Again

Margaret, who had gone back to Oakura to be with the children, got the family up early and reached Hamilton by 8 in the morning. The discharge processes however stymied us, and we didn’t get away until 3 pm.  By the time we reached Mokau it was dark, and we stopped for a meal just before the shop closed. 

The recovery at home was slow: each day I walked another lamp-post further up Wairau Road until I could manage the 2 km all in one go.  Friends came to sit with me while Marg and the kids were at school, people like Terry Hickey and Nigel Hayton and Iain Tennent. 

As predicted by the doctors, it took most of a year to recover completely and 12 months to the day, I climbed the Kaitake Ranges again, with a group of special relations and friends and celebrated with another picnic when we reached the summit..  

In 2008 I had another heart attack and again ended up at Waikato Hospital. There the catheter laboratory doctors examined my heart and suggested a stent in the fourth artery. No sooner had I agreed than it was done! They also told me they had checked the by-passes and they were all fit for another ten years. 

The most exciting part of this episode was late that evening when the nurses came to remove the plug in my groin. It took four of them to hold the artery to control the blood-flow, while they removed the plug!