|
There I was in the middle of a matinee performance of
the broadway run of the comedy "The Play What I Wrote",
dressed in a frock and a big Marie-Antoinette wig, when I
heard a bang. It was my head hitting the floor.
Fortunatelly, the wig had stopped my skull from splitting
open, but I was dazed. I heard Hamish McColl, who was on stage
with me, ask "Are you all right?" and I said: "Of
course I'm all right, and what are you doing in my bedroom?"
I thought I'd gone to sleep.
I sat up to see the audience's mouths were wide open,
including my poor wife's. The curtain came down and I was
rushed by paramedics to St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan.
There, a consultant immediately contacted my cardiologist
in California, who had been treating me for a prolapsed valve
in my heart which had not been causing any problems.
He told me that I now had a fault with the eletrics of
my heart, which caused it to skip a beat. This meant the blood
hadn't got up to the brain, so I had blacked out.
It is called a syncopal attack and is a form of heart
arrhythmia. It might have been genetic, but they couldn't
say for sure what had caused it and it could re-occur at any
time.
The consultant told me that I needed a pacemaker immediately
to regulate the electrical impulses and make the heart pump
regularly. This time, he said, had been a warning. Next time,
I wouldn't be so lucky. I was not surprised with the diagnosis.
I am known by my family as a hypocondriac, but now, as Spike
Milligan would have said, it's a case of: "I told you
I was sick!".
The operation to put in the pacemaker - under my collarbone
- took place at 8.00 am the next morning, and I left hospital
24 hours later. That night I made a 20-minutes speech at a
UNICEF fundraiser at the Plaza Hotel in New York, as planned,
and flew back to London a couple of days later. I felt great.
Shortly after the pacemaker was fitted, I did a speaking engagement
for my daughter's charity Passage, which helps get homeless
people off the streets. I was in London and all I had to do
was to recite the words to the song "The Streets of London".
But when I went on stage it suddenly struck me - "Oh
my God, the last time I opened my mouth..." and my knees
started going. But I survived.
The operation has left me with a little bumpy scar where
the pacemaker was implanted, but soon forgot it was there.
I don't work out as much as I used to, and instead of going
through the electro-magnetic gates at airports I have to have
a hand-search. Unfortunately, they never let girls do it.
But the only real major difference the pacemaker has made
is that it means I'm still around. I was very lucky to get
such a quick diagnosis, but other people are not so fortunate.
I want to raise awareness of the condition to help children
who have similar attacks but never get the right diagnosis.
I know how frightening it can be for an adult, let alone a
child, to experience an attack. Suddenly, the heart can stop,
the eyes roll back, the area around the lips looks white-blue
and they go into a seizure called a reflex anoxic seizure
when the heart actually misses a beat, and they temporarily
loose consciousness. Often it is triggered by a shock, fright
or stressful situation.
But children are not always able to explain what is wrong,
and parents and doctors can mistake it for temper tantrums
and think that they are holding their breath out of wilfulness.
The attacks can be regular, and the consequences - such as
blacking out at the top of the stairs - could be fatal. A
simple game of tennis might be disastrous if a ball hits them
causing them to black out and knock their head on the ground.
Because of a lack of understanding among patients and professionals,
the condition can often go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
Every week the support group STARS (Syncope Trust and
Reflex Anoxic Seizures) receives 1.000 e-mails from people
who have had unexplained blackouts which they are not being
treated for. Some have had them for more than 20 years and
suffer attacks every day. Often they have been told they have
epilepsy and been put on useless medication. Even if they
do get a diagnosis, a lack of funds and equipment mean they
will not necessarily be given a pacemaker or any other treatment.
My pacemaker has meant I can continue to live an active life,
and I hope the same will soon be true for the thousands of
people in the UK suffering with arrhythmias.
Thanks to my pacemaker, I continue to spend my time between
Monaco and Switzerland with my wonderful wife Kristina, and
travel the world for UNICEF.
My speedy diagnosis and treatment means my heart condition
has left me neither shaken, nor stirred. The only thing that
shakes me now are my stiff knees when I get out of bed in
the morning, but I've been lucky. By raising awareness I hope
more people will be, too.
|
