So, Friday the 5th of May is European Heart Failure Awareness Day.  I bet most of you didn't know that.  I had certainly  never heard about it before I was diagnosed with the condition.  Around Europe there are events aimed at rasing the awareness of Heart Failure and what it means for those of use living with the condition.  Hopefully it means a higher level of exposure for the condition which I feel is not as well publicised as other illnesses.  I in no way want other conditions to be thought any less of but I would like for heart failure to be recognised for the debilitating and widespread condition it is.  If you are looking for any events connected with the day then head off over to https://www.escardio.org/Sub-specialty-communities/Heart-Failure-Association-of-the-ESC-(HFA)/Advocacy-&-Awareness/heart-failure-awareness-day

Well, I've done it!  On Saturday I ran my first 5K parkrun and in the process raised nearly £700 for the heart failure charity, Pumping Marvellous.  I'm not going to lie and say it was the easiest thing I've ever done because I've been hobbling around ever since with sore and stiff legs and a painful knee but hopefully this is the beginning of something new that will get easier as time goes on.

Whoop de do!  We are having a General Election.  I can hardly remember the last election.  Oh hang on, there was that referendum last year, and the last general election the year before. It's hard to keep up especially when the current PM assured us she wasn't going to call an early election and that she would abide by the fixed term parliament act.  I mean, we all believed her didn't we?  The way she traded on Thatchers's 'this woman isn't for turning' legacy (god help us!).  MInd you, she probably gets her definition of telling the truth from the same dictionary as her predecessor who assured us that he would stick around if the country voted to leave the EU.  That worked well didn't it?

That's it.  I've obviously gone mad.  Why's that Rich? I hear you all call (ok, I don't but you get the idea).  After 40 odd years of avoiding as many forms of exercise as possible, I've started running and going to the gym.  The way I figure it is this.  I've had to give up some things I enjoyed like drinking beer (I'll hasten to add that no, I was and have never been an alcoholic, I just enjoyed the taste of beer, and red wine, and whisky and other alcoholic beverages).  Anyway, as I can't do these things anymore I may as well make the most of it and attempt to get fit.  Obviously I spoke to my cardiologist about this and my heart failure nurse and they both agreed that I'm well enough to start working out.  I've joined a gym and will be doing my first park run in just over a week (people that know me have been spammed with my fundraising for the Pumping Marvellous Foundation over on Facebook).

Ok, so I've finally got this site up after some planning and some false starts.  My journey with heart failure has been a bit of a learning curve, both about the condition but also getting to learning about myself again.  In many way I'm still the same person but in others I'm very diffferent.  The obvious things that have changed are that I no longer drink (well, apart from a couple at Christmas and my birthday as allowed by my cardiologist). 

This is the first paragraph of the test article.

Five years ago today I was lying in a hospital bed in St. James's hospital in Leeds where I was very ill.  I'd been in for a few days having tests and not really knowing what was wrong with me and what the future held. While I was laying there a new group of doctors and nurses from the ones I'd already seen came to talk to me and over the next 20 minutes it was explained that I had a condition called Heart Failure and my heart was pumping at around 10% and my body was going through multi-organ failure because of the strain this was putting on the rest of my body.  I was to be urgently transferred to the Cardiology ward at the Leeds General Hospital in a blue lighted ambulance and was given some booklets about the condition from the British Heart Foundation which told me the condition was degenerative and that I was likely to be dead within five years.

What a year this is turning out to be. It started with so many big plans.  Great North Run, Ride London, various 10Ks, hitting the 50 Park Run target, Snowdon, Yorkshire Three Peaks and all to celebrate my 50th birthday.  Well, obviously COVID-19 put paid to pretty much all of it.  To cap it all off I then injured my back then not long after that recovered my Achilles tendon started playing up.  The main thing though is that those close to me are safe and well.  The Achilles will heal, I've done a 55mile virtual Ride London in the roads north of Leeds and I'll get the half marathon in once I'm fully mobile again so shouldn't really complain.  My experience of living with heart failure has been far less difficult than most people's and for that, I'm extremely grateful.  We've lost some good people to the condition this year and there is a real risk that the after-effects of COVID-19 will see more people have to adjust to living with damaged hearts due to way it's been compromised when ill.