My name is Robert and I have lived in Beeston for 5 years. Before that I lived in Lenton for 35 years, so I know this part of the world fairly well. Being a community activist of some sort the whole time has helped, though I gave up on committees when I reached 70 five years ago. In Beeston I work with Beeston & District Civic Society. What you may have seen are my maps of local shops and days out by bus. I also champion Nottingham City Transport's 35 bus route between Bulwell and the city centre, which has been branded 'The History Bus' since October 2018, and one bears my name (of which I’m very proud).
In 2014, with financial help from Nottinghamshire Local History Association, I published the first history guide to the 35 bus route. Later the same year, a Nottingham City Council funded project called TravelRight, set up to encourage walking, cycling and using public transport, produced another version based on my text. Then in 2018 Nottingham City Transport published their version, again based on my text, which is still available. I also have a blog devoted to exploring History by Nottingham Bus.
Then I occasionally write about growing up in Wembley and post what I write to a blog called My Wembley and, finally, I also write short stories for relaxation and have a blog called Senior Fiction.
I don’t do Facebook or the like.
Put all this together and you have a pretty good idea as to who I am. I have also been suspicious of authority since my schooldays — hence the reason why what I want to achieve with the Beeston 2 Minute Exercise Club is open to all. It will not be clique I promise.
WHY AM I DOING THIS?
I spent every Monday and Friday morning for 6 weeks during September and October just gone attending a Nottingham NHS lung rehab course doing the exercises I list in my first post. Each session lasted 2 hours and included a presentation given by the physio who oversaw what we were doing. Before going I had heard the course referred to as ‘a boot camp’ in a jovial manner. At the beginning of the course we were all given a sheet with the exercises listed, against which we marked how we did. We also had our oxygen levels taken before we started and a few minutes after we finished the exercises, the last of which was a 10 minute walk around the hall we were in, to monitor our oxygen recovery rate.
So why was I on this rehab programme? Back in 2015, the day after the general election in May, I had a chest x-ray at the QMC Hospital because a week before I had mowed the lawn at home and coughed up blood. The following Wednesday I was called in by my GP to be told that the x-rayed showed I had ‘established fibrosis of the lungs’ and that the prognosis was ‘not good’.
A few days later I was in the City Hospital’s lung assessment ward with a doctor who, looking at a 2nd x-ray taken minutes before, gave me the good news: it was the same as it had been 10 days before - which also gave me a measure of just how fast my terminal condition (which now had a name - Ideopathic Pulomanory Fibrosis) could progress once the scarring on my lungs erupted. I’m pleased to say that my lungs have had their moments but I’m still here. At the same time the lung doctor who examined me said ‘And how long have you had a heart problem Robert?’ My wife Susan and I looked at her and we replied ‘What heart problem?’
The doctor sent me for two scans - one for my lungs and one for my heart. The first confirmed the IPF diagnosis and the second that I had a heart problem. At this point I had no symptoms of either and the coughing with blood, which had lasted two days, was put down to an allergic reaction on my part to the grass types which made up our lawn and I was advised to wear a mask whilst cutting the grass.
I spent the next 15 months being closely monitored by the City Hospital’s thoracic and cardiac teams, then a angiogram revealed that I had lived for 72 years with a aortic heart valve with 2 cusps instead of 3 that needed replacing. I was ‘close to the edge’ according to my surgeon, who did a graphic drawing to show my situation. By then I was slowing down, sleeping a lot, and discovering Christmas films on Channel 5 TV (which I can’t kick, so I’m watching more TV at the moment).
My lung consultant had to support my open heart surgery - which he did - and I finally had my operation on 27 February 2017 at 5 days notice. I was treated like royalty and never once since May 2015 have I suffered any real pain or physical discomfort. My lungs took ‘a hit’ but I recovered. I left hospital after 10 days with instructions to incrementally get my walking up to 30 minutes a day in 9 weeks and I did. It helped that my love of buses has ensured I am a lifelong urban walker, so I still do, walking inside the house when I can’t get outside because of the weather.
In May 2017 I did an 8 week heart rehab exercise in Lenton, at the end of which I went to a cardiac exercise group at the Chilwell Olympia Leisure Centre costing £15 a month for 6 months but it was a little to far to walk in the rain or pull my shopping trolley, so I ended using our car in the absence of a convenient bus service. In early-2018 I found a Breathing Matters exercise class in Beeston town centre at the Pearson Centre, costing £5 a week, which I could to and go shopping afterwards, then the numbers began to dwindle as parking became more difficult and another Breathing Matters exercise class in New Stapleford grew because there was plenty of parking. I enjoyed the group but I really wanted something local so I stopped going about 6-7 months ago and contacted my consultant about the NHS lung rehab course he had mentioned in 2018. In a few weeks I found myself sitting in the hall at Beechdale Community Centre being assessed as to my suitability and started on Monday 16 September 2019 going twice a week.
It was just what I needed. The discipline and routine showed that I could set time aside and still do other things, many of them routine: shopping, cooking, gardening, reading, blogging, seeing friends. It helped that the physio was inspirational (I will add her name if I get her permission).
I am definitely better for it and you would know this is true had you seen me spread out on the floor yesterday playing the part of a telephone engineer, led by a real one talking to my wife on her mobile phone, trying to fix a problem with a dead telephone line. I got down and up several times without a thought as to what I was doing. It was only after my wife commented on my new found agility.
Finally, I tend to forget that in 2013 I had a minor stroke at home whilst I was writing one evening. My left wrist went floppy and my hand hung loose, me unable to move it. No pain, no physical sensation whatsoever, and it stayed that way for 30 minutes before use returned as if nothing had happened. The first thing I did was a take a 300mg Aspirin and wonder if I was having a small stroke, mindful of what is said about a 2nd following the 1st. I knew the Derby Road Health Centre across the road from where I lived, where I was registered (and still am) opened at 7am, so I was there on the dot. An hour later I was in the City Hospital's TIA Clinic and at 11am I had a brain scan, which on preliminary examination suggested I probably had had a minor stroke. For a couple of months I had regular check-ups at the City Hospital. I had been lucky and today the only reminder I have is that I take 75mg of Aspirin every day.
Looking back, I suspect all this can be tracked back to feeling stressed at work during my final few years. I was a senior manager used to managing my team, budgets and development programme without any interference but times were changing: there were policy manuals and, worst of all, a never ending stream of back-watching emails now we all had computers. I was overweight (19st 3lb on 31 January 2003) and began seeing Ron Tipper, a qualified osteopath at the Caritas Clinic on Chilwell Road once a fortnight and he was a great help (he died last year, by which time he was a good friend, and I miss him). Yesterday I was 13st 3lb, having put on 2lb in the past week after overdosing on cheese. I weigh myself every Sunday when I get up. Stress in my case makes me sleep, eat more and put on weight. I ended up retiring in 2006 at the age of 64 when Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer. In January 2004 I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and put on medication and experienced panic attacks during my last 15 months at work (2 of which hospitalised me in the QMC). By the end of 2006 my blood pressure was as good as normal and I was medication. I tell you this because I believe all this was preventable and I think something like my planned 2 minute exercise club may well have helped.
It was at the end of the lung rehab course that I decided to try and set up the Beeston 2 Minute Exercise Club (see previous post for my progress to date), the name only coming a few days ago. We shall see in the new year if it happens because that will depend on others (maybe you?), who decide to come along and see if the 2 Minute Club is for you.
There will no committee because I don’t do committees, believing that well intentioned individuals can make it happen.
Why? Because I believe we all know intuitively that self-help works and that prevention is better than cure when it comes to personal health and well-being. If just 5% of us make it happen for ourselves then we can help the NHS redirect much needed funds.
The sad thing is that none of this is new or revelatory, as a Government policy document entitled Prevention and health: everybody's business from 1976 examined in depth.
This is the cover of my personal copy from 1976, when I was Chair of the then East Birmingham Community Health Council (CHCs were abolished without any public consultation in 2003 by Tony Blair and his New Labour acolytes. In many places they did a good job of holding the NHS to account and this why they had to be abolished. The privatisation of public healthcare by stealth is something all three major political parties in England are responsible for).
In the document's very 2nd paragraph it says 'We need to interest individuals, communities and society as a whole in the idea that prevention is better than cure'. It was a message I was already hooked on and continue to talk about whenever I have the chance (like now).
From 1971 until 1983 I worked for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service as the charity's Development and Records Officer, locating sites for potential clinics and preparing quarterly returns for the then Department of Health. As a volunteer I had been involved in a family planning clinic as a record keeper. Contraception is all about prevention, just like vaccination against a whole range of illnesses. What this report did was to push the policy into our lives in a more questioning, personal way, as this page I marked at the time shows (click on page to enlarge):
It has been a regret that I haven't done more to promote this message or policy. I take no comfort knowing that I am not alone in this respect. Over the years I can say I've done a few things and the Beeston 2 Minute Exercise Club is my latest attempt; something I had no intention of doing two months ago. Then, I just wanted to find another exercise class I could walk to and join. Now I'm looking forward to the challenge, believing that the 2 Minute Exercise Club will be qualitatively different because it will be open, encouraging, supportive and, above all, something those who attend can take home with them.
10–12 of us and I'll be happy, just enough to cover our costs one way or another. The model is simple and builds on a partnership of professionals, the venue provider, volunteers and participants.
We shall see come February 2020.
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