Trevor and Jackie
Trevor Fernandes had his first heart attack aged just
47.
He was in the gym at the time, and didn't suspect a heart attack at all.
When he came out of hospital, Trevor carried on as
he had before. Six years later, another heart attack struck.
Trevor's second attack
I was a very active person before, I had a very full on job. I enjoyed my work and the immediate thing that came to mind was 'Oh God, what’s it going to do to my work'.
Trevor had just got
back home from a holiday in France. He went to bed, and woke up two
weeks later in hospital.
His pulse had stopped in the night, and his wife Jackie had to
resuscitate him all by herself, helped along by the ambulance
dispatcher talking her through it.
It was very difficult for Trevor to come to terms with
everything that had happened. He'd gone into a
medically-induced coma and had several operations
to help him pull through. He was "devastated".
When Trevor was discharged from hospital he was given an info
pack with lots of reading material and among it were booklets from the BHF.
They focused on recovering, and moving forward: "That helped me
understand my illness and that was the time when I learned to stop
fearing it."
I relied on the BHF-funded heart failure nurses even more than the doctors and consultants.
Ultimately, what got him
through was the support he received from his wife Jackie.
"My wife was the single thing that kept me going. It makes you
think how do people survive when they don’t have that support? It's
incredible isn’t it!"
Jackie's quick thinking saved Trevor
When Jackie couldn't wake her husband, she was very
concerned.
"I decided to call 999, and even as I was calling them I thought
he’s going to wake up in a minute and say 'Oh for goodness sake,
you always over-react, what have you done!'"
Jackie says it took Trevor a long time to come to terms with his
condition and that the BHF information
leaflets helped both both of them:
“I wasn’t in the hospital a lot of the time the doctors and
nurses were telling him what was happening, so for me the booklets
were really valuable.”
They both found reassurance from Trevor’s BHF
nurse Kate, as well.
"There were lots of things I felt I could ask the heart nurse. I
was able to say, well is this something that’s normal?"
Jackie says her husband is now "a crusader for heart conditions"
and their life together is "amazing, really amazing".