Today sees my six monthly visit to my cardiologist. I have only one real complaint about going : he has his offices in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney , I live in the Western suburbs . If I do have a heart attack I am only five minutes away from the big Concord hospital , but I first became acquainted with Doctor Bob when we were living in Bondi Junction , and I would rather travel across Sydney than change cardiologists .

Long before I retired , I was hurrying along with my son , a doctor-to -be , to Redfern Station . I got a bit of a pang in the left chest , but attributed it to a stitch . John advised me to get it checked , but I didn't , as what would a medical student , and a son , know ? I have to a degree since regretted that decision . It may have changed my life somewhat .

No more problems came up until after I retired. It is of course mandatory to have a heart attack at that point in one's life .

I had been to a party , and had over eaten , not unusually for me . A got a slight case of indigestion , but that did not deter from another birthday binge with a friend a week later . The indigestion returned but rather worse .

It was a painful bout , aching up under the left jaw as well as in the chest . I moaned and groaned about the flat till at last my nurse wife insisted I go up to the Outpatient's at Randwick Hospital . Reluctantly I agreed .

Oh , said the Nurse in charge .

Oho , said the Registrar in charge .

Then together they chanted: You're having a heart attack !

Well thanks for that information I thought as they bundled me up to the Intensive Care Unit . To me it all seemed hardly worth the fuss because I cannot honestly say I felt all that bad . But then , who am I to argue with medics ?

Anyway , along came the cardiologist , and this was one of my lucky days . I did not know him at the time , of course , but since 1987 I have got to know and like him a great deal , and I could not be in better hands.

Here we get medical. It was but a short time before I started a diet ( I was to lose about 90 pounds by the time the processes from go to whoa were completed ) and after the usual series of cholesterol checks and other tests about which I have little knowledge I was given the first of a series of angiograms .

I cannot complain about the procedure , for although a friend who had had one told me that it was the most exquisite pain he had ever felt . I must have had enough local anaesthetic to prevent that . I watched the catheter on the operating room monitors as it made its way up from the incision in my femoral artery all the way up to the top of my heart and into the top chamber .

Now you'll feel as if you've peed yourself said Doctor Bob as I now knew him , and it was a perfectly true observation , because that is literally just how I felt as I watched the dye flood through the heart .

I need to add here that although the monitors were black and white , I am quite convinced that the colour of my spine as it showed on the screens was a bright yellow .

The result of the angiogram ? The left anterior artery needed replacing, though it would hold up for a while , they thought . One area of the heart muscle however was done for , unfortunately.

Right . More diet until it was time to take the chop, which came six months later.

By a strange coincidence , another resident of our block of units had a heart attack at the same time as my operation was to take place . I add that the facade of that set of units had a kind of crenellation , so it immediately became known as Cardiac Castle . Jerry , the other resident with the heart problem was less lucky than I . He had a different cardiologist who worked with a different surgeon from mine .

After his operation they found that the sutures were leaking and they had to go in again for a tidying up, then the poor bugger , taking a shower , fell over and broke a rib. My post-op recovery was uneventful . The first grandchild was much taken with the tubes emerging from my body , and the resultant drainage in the containers he discovered while looking under the bed .

The recovery was however enlivened by a couple of young trainee nurses whom I had taken for drama improvisation courses during their high school years some time before . They were quite insane in some ways with odd pranks involving water fights with syringes, even though very caring in all other ways . Maybe it was my improvisation training that brought on their minor insanities . They took good care of me however and I could not have asked for better .

I was also lucky that the surgeons were able to take the left inner mammary artery to substitute for the lower anterior descending one on the heart itself . This means that I bear no leg scars from where they usually take the substitute veins which might spoil the beauty of my nether limbs, although I will for the rest of my life get the odd pang just below the left collarbone as a result of the artery removal.

One of the nice things about the results of the operation is that for many years I was able to jog , to run for buses and so on without even puffing . This alas is no longer possible , as spinal canal stenosis and arthritis have limited my joyful leaps . I can't walk for long even. I have an electric scooter for the long trips.

Exercise I must , of course , to keep the heart ticking . I do my stretches for the arthritis , swim when the water in our pool at the complex is warm enough ( for me , that is , though for many it is too cold for long periods in winter ) and I use an exercise bike.

I ask , What is more boring than a stationary bike , even if one can play funny mathematical games with its digital read-outs ?. It's like being second dog in a sled team ; the scenery doesn't change much .

And as a last burden , I still get indigestion from a hiatus hernia.

Thus , when exercising , I am always conscious of three possible sources of pain : the arthritis pain that spreads across the chest from the shoulders ; the pain from the hiatus hernia ; the possibility of another heart attack.

The arthritis-- an easy fix -- paracetamol in slow release form .

The others leave me with the options of a big burp or of dropping dead.