Updated on Sep 16th 2012 at 11:51 AM from the JustGiving API

We had a fantastic night last night thank you to everyone for all your support it means so much to me and my family we raised a massive £1180.47 last night to add to our just giving total. So now we can set about getting our defibrillator for the town which will hopefully spare families from losing someone dear to them to a cardiac arrest .... Thank you to everyone for their support you are stars xxx

Updated on Sep 14th 2012 at 10:23 PM from the JustGiving API

READY TO ROCK & ROLL.xxxxx

Updated on Sep 13th 2012 at 3:33 AM from the JustGiving API

With Just two more days to go and still so much to do I am struggling with a very painful knee after a trip to A&E doctors are almost sure it's not a DVT which was my biggest fear, they think it's a bleed into the muscle caused by the anticoagulants that I have been taking following my cardiac arrest. More tests tomorrow to be on safe side. Just hoping I will be fit for Rock 4 Shock, might not be able to dance but I'll be there ...... See you all on Saturday night, thank you all for your donations, please spread the word and ask people to give generously Thank you all from the bottom of my heart xxx

Updated on Sep 8th 2012 at 8:09 PM from the JustGiving API

Preparations are going well for Rock 4 Shock the musicians have got their set list ready they are ready to rock . The buffet is organised thanks to some willing hands . Table decorations almost completed, just need to find something to wear lol Look forward to seeing everyone next Saturday xxxx

I suffered a cardiac arrest and survived 

Wednesday 25 January 2012 was just like any other ordinary day, I got up and went to work. I can’t remember what the weather was like that day or what I was wearing, come to think of it I can’t really remember much about the few days previously. I do remember gradually waking up in Stafford hospital about 6 or 7 or so days later to the beeping of machines. I remember feeling terrified and trying to express the fear with my eyes, as I could not talk because I had a tracheotomy. As I woke my family were there and doctors and nurses and the story of what had happened to me began to unfold. I had been sitting on the wall outside of work talking to my daughter Hayley who had come to meet me at lunch time to tell me how her first day on a university course had gone. None of this I really remember but I am told I had a sudden cardiac arrest. Clair my other daughter said she had thought I had been looking rather grey and tired of late and with hind sight I remember having some hot flushes and palpitations’ and feeling very tiered, which I dismissed as being a part of my age and thought “oh just get on with it Susan”

I am told that my collapse was sudden and as my daughter and I sat chatting on the wall outside my work I said that I felt dizzy and was going to pass out. With a massive thud I hit the ground, despite Hayley trying to break my fall I hit my head and chest on the hard cobbles, cracking a cheek bone and putting my teeth through my lip. Hayley ran into my work and asked them to phone for an ambulance and then returned where a passerby helped to put me in the recovery position as at this time they thought that I had a pulse. As my daughter bent over to see if I was breathing, the first responders arrived just as my breathing had stopped. They arrived in less than three minutes. On arrival my heart had almost stopped too, except for some erratic flickers called ventricular fibrillation, which could not sustain life, I was dead! I was incredibly lucky that the first responders and paramedic were at my side within less than three minutes; They cleared my airway of blood, and gave me the all important defibrillation and then put a tube into my airway and began CPR, this continued in the short ambulance ride to the A&E department. I received a total of 40 to 45 minutes’ CPR. Doctors and nurses believed that there was nothing further they could do.

My family were beginning to ring relatives and friends to inform them I had passed away, when a doctor returned some 20 or 30 minutes later to say miraculously they had found a pulse! However they were not very optimistic and warned that they could not be sure how long my brain had been starved of oxygen and that even if I did live I might have irreparable brain damage. My family then had to call people back with the news that I was alive but critically ill and that there was only a small chance that I would survive and if I did I would most probably be brain damaged.

But gradually they started to wake me up and six days later on my eldest daughter’s birthday I opened my eyes. As I woke up in the critical care unit my family told me of the amazing care I had received, I could not speak as I had to have a tracheotomy, for anyone who knows me you will understand how frustrated I became, this was possibly the worst part as I could not tell anyone how I felt. As I became more awake I was told that I had two broken ribs from the CPR, which had nicked a blood vessel and caused my chest cavity to fill with blood collapsing my lung. While I was asleep I had an emergency operation to insert a chest drain, my family told me that this was organised with almost military precision and that I was taken to theatre by at least 8 doctors and nurses. As the blood vessels would not stop bleeding I was given blood transfusions and heavily sedated and given drugs to paralyse me in order to try and stop the bleeding. Doctors also put me in an induced hypothermic state to try and reduce the brain damage that I might suffer.

The care I received in Stafford Critical care unit was nothing short of amazing I had a senior nurse by my side 24 hours a day, not only did they care for me but they looked after my family who were also with me around the clock.

Gradually I began to improve but I was so weak, and still reeling from the enormity of it all. The weeks passed and I became strong and after about four weeks I was ready to get out of bed for the first time. I remember clearly how wonderful it was when I first stood up, feeling the air all around me, but my legs didn’t feel my own, they were like jelly, but I had to learn to walk again. At first it didn’t seem possible, I was so weak I thought that I would never walk again properly but I did at first with the aid a Zimmer frame then with sticks, it was hard work but I was determined to get on my feet again. I had my first shower after four weeks it was amazing, I began to feel almost human again. After a month I was well enough to leave critical care and onto the cardiology ward. While there I was put on a monitor which showed that not only had I had a cardiac arrest but that I was having 6 to 8 second pauses where my heart would stop, but these only happened at night. I had an angiogram which came back normal so no furred up arteries my echocardiogram was normal all good news but still no reason for why I had a cardiac arrest. Doctors were reluctant to speculate but said it could have been something as simple as an infection that caused it.

I spent 7 weeks in hospital and now I have an ICD fitted that will pace my heart should it need it and administer a shock if it ever goes into ventricular fibrillation again. Now I can get on with my life and feel confident as I have my own internal cardiac defibrillator. 

Statistically Sudden Cardiac Arrest strikes around 100,000 people a year in the UK alone, without warning it kills 250 people a day in the UK, less than 5% of victims survive out of hospital, 3% of that 5% that do survive are likely to suffer permanent brain damage. It kills more people than Lung Cancer, Breast Cancer and AIDS combined. Early defibrillation is the key to surviving a SCA. 

 Please Help save a life and give Generously all money raised will go toward a portable cardiac difibrulator that can be used by anyone. Any surplus will go to raising awareness of where these protable difibrulators are situated.

More information is on the Arrhthmia Allience Web site who are supporting our event

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