divorcedlondon

I returned to work for the first time since my heart attack last week.

My desk was surprisingly uncluttered, and my week fairly stress free, thanks to my assistant, Terry and the senior sales executives in my department. They all worked very hard to hold the fort in my absence and I’m grateful to them for that.

I don’t want to say that my presence at work isn’t necessary, but it does seem like everyone has done fine without me. I’m still been receiving my performance bonuses, so I must still be doing something right!

My boss, the managing director, has been brilliant about my recent illness; he’s been incredibly supportive, kind and generous. Also the private medical insurance was a godsend, making sure I didn’t have to wait too long for tests or treatment and of course, my private room.

A heart attack; I didn’t see that coming.

I’m probably the only one who didn’t. Forests and trees, eh?

On the night of my heart attack, I was home; I was alone, though I wasn’t expecting to stay that way.

I had booked a prossie to visit me, from my former favourite website which features independent working-women. I was looking forward to another classic discreetlondon evening with all the trimmings.

I was ready to party that night, as I was most nights; as I did most nights. And days; I was out of control with cocaine, my drinking was fairly full-on too. I guess it was only a matter of time before it all caught up to me.

I was ready and waiting for the whore to arrive. On top of my usual mix of booze and charlie, I also took a couple of Erectalis tablets.

Another of my bad habits: double-dropping the penis pills because one tablet just wasn’t cutting it. Kids, please don’t try this at home!

I’ve since found out from my doctor, just how risky doubling the dosage can be and even worse, mixing it with a stimulant like cocaine.

Yes, I came clean with my doctor. I had to do it, as they couldn’t find anything wrong with my heart after all the testing, just some scarring from the heart attack, but no blockages or obstructions.

Rather than keep my doctor searching for the cause, I confessed to my many sins.

My doctor wasn’t surprised I had the heart attack, based on what I told him. Actually, if anything surprised him, it’s that I didn’t have the heart trouble sooner!

My recent illness was self-inflicted and I was the sole architect of my near-demise. I really could have died that night and still could, if I ever slip back into my old ways.

That’s not going to happen. I’ve sworn off all of it and am living clean and healthy from now on. I’ve given up the charlie for good, I’m not going to drink any more and quite controversially for me, I’m never touching another Erectalis or Vega ever again!

I’ve been using performance-boosting pills for a couple of years now, fairly regularly. I didn’t know they could possibly have potentially dangerous and lethal side-effects.

I know now; I found out the hard way!

Fear is a rather strong motivator, especially when death is the possible outcome if you remain on the same path.

Since coming home from hospital, I can’t say I’ve had much of a sex drive. I think I’m probably too scared to even think about it. I don’t even know if I could get it up, if I tried.

I’m serious; I haven’t woken up with an erection in weeks now. I used to always have “morning wood” and since the heart attack, nothing.

Maybe it’s because I’m still recovering, maybe I’m finally past it or maybe I just can’t do anything without a little pharmaceutical boost.

However you look at it, my shagging days may actually be over. Those are words I never expected to be writing, and I’m guessing you never expected to be reading them!

But I’m still alive, that’s what matters most, isn’t it?

On the night of my heart attack, I was home, I was alone, waiting for the prossie I booked.

She never came, never called. I tried to phone her, several times and all I got was her voicemail.

I was coked up to the gills, drunk and pilled up on Erectalis. I was ready to party, I was ready to shag, but the hooker never arrived.

When it finally dawned on me that she wasn’t going to appear, I tried to find someone else, which at 2am on a Saturday night is nigh impossible. If they’re not already booked; they’ve shut-up shop for the night.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Doug, my literary collaborator and dare I say, friend. He’s really been there for me. I know I’ve had my ups and downs with him and have whinged about him on more than one occasion, but he’s really been a great help through all of this.

Doug visited me several times in hospital, brought me all of your emails and has generally been very supportive. He saw the trouble coming and even tried to point it out to me, before my heart attack, but I was too stupid and pig-headed to listen to him.

He explained to me why he was so concerned; Doug lost a close friend of his to cocaine abuse a couple of years ago.

Doug’s friend was fifty years old when he died and was a long time coke-head. He’d recently settled down with his partner and had a couple of children, who were both quite young when he died. Doug’s friend was home with his partner, watching TV on a Saturday night. He got up from the sofa, took a step and then fell flat on his face. He never got up again.

The autopsy revealed serious damage to his heart, most likely from his long term cocaine use. The doctors said the only thing that would have saved him would have been a heart transplant.

I don’t want to heart transplant! I don’t want another heart attack! I want to live as long as I can! For me, that means no more drugs, legal or otherwise.

I wish it didn’t take a heart attack for me to realise the error of my ways. I thought I could enjoy all of these illicit pleasures without it catching up to me. I was wrong, nearly dead wrong.

Doug’s been visiting me regularly, which has been good. Last Sunday, he dropped by and treated me for lunch at a restaurant nearby.

After the meal, we were walking up Sussex Gardens back to my place, when we saw a sign that made us both burst out laughing.

The sign said: “47 kerb crawlers have lost their licenses here in the last year.”

As you might recall, Sussex Gardens is where I was meeting streetwalkers last winter. It was also where I was mugged. At least, I was never arrested!

Doug and I have made some serious progress on turning my first blog into a book.

Doug’s friend Simon proof-read the manuscript for us and Doug has already made all of those changes. Doug’s friend also suggested that if we cut around 20% from it, that it would be a much better, crisper read.

Doug’s friend is right and I’ve told Doug to make the additional changes. Basically, I have handed the entire project over to him and I’m going to let him to chop it down so that it is a tight, fast paced story.

Let’s face facts, I can’t do it myself. I’m too close to it and besides, I think every word is essential to the story, since every word is mine. I wouldn’t know where to begin to edit it down. Doug says it will take him a few weeks, so we are still way behind schedule.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it was available to buy in time for Christmas? Can you think of a better gift than my book?

And for those of you who would like to read “The Secret Internet Diary of an Unfaithful Husband” online, you better be quick! Once it’s in print, the blog is coming offline, for good. There’s no point trying to sell the thing, if you can get it for free online! I’ll leave it up for the time being though, so get in there while you can and then buy the book too!

Doug told me something funny; he’s told a few people he works with about my blogs and he’s got them all reading them, but that’s not the funny part. What amused me so much is that Doug’s work colleagues think he’s actually the writer!

If you knew Doug, you’d understand just how laughable this is!

My best mate, Bob, has been around more lately as well and we’ve actually cleared the air between us.

I’ve known Bob since I was a teenager and he’s my best friend in the world. I thought he had distanced himself from me because of his recent marriage, but that wasn’t the reason at all. He just couldn’t deal with my drug use.

Bob’s certainly no angel himself and he’s partied with me many times, but Bob’s relationship with coke is much different from mine. He can take it or leave it, I can’t; I can only take it…and take it and take it!

I’ve missed Bob and I didn’t really realise how much until he told me what a jerk I’d been. It made me understand that I had driven my best friend away from me. I won’t let it happen again.

Jenny, my favourite employee, visited me regularly in hospital.

I was actually quite surprised that she spent so much time with me. I’m sure her husband must suspect something because “visiting the boss in hospital” must sound a bit dodgy night after night.

Jenny’s concern seemed quite genuine and I was very touched by her attentiveness. We’ve had a long running flirtation that I’ve never consummated and now it looks even more unlikely that I ever will. Right now, I don't think I'd be able, anyway.

On the night I had my heart attack, I was really wound up too tight.

Once I established that the whore I was expecting wasn’t coming, I got even more agitated. I took more coke, downed more whiskey and considered my options.

I didn’t have many. I was wide awake, wasted and fully erect, but alone in my flat with nothing but hardcore porn and my infamous charcoal grey robe for company.

I couldn’t sleep, I was too wired and my cock hurt from being so hard.

I wanked and then I wanked again. My cock was still rigid.

As I was having my third wank in less than an hour, I started to feel tightness in my chest and I began to get breathless.

At first, I didn’t think anything of it and continued to pummel my prick.

Then the pain suddenly got more intense.

It felt as if I was kicked hard in the chest by a stallion.

I thought my heart was going to stop.

I thought my heart might explode.

I was dizzy, gasping for air, lying on my sofa with the hardcore porn still playing. I’d never known pain like this before. I hope I never do again.

I may have blacked out for a while; I’m not really certain how much time passed. It could have been ten minutes; it could have been an hour or more. I’m just not sure.

I knew I needed help. I knew whatever was happening with me was serious. I called 999; I whispered to the operator, told her I needed paramedics as soon as possible. I gave her my address and told them to hurry.

I crawled to the front door of my flat and opened it. I was slumped on the floor, against the wall. I could just about reach the entry phone and prayed I would stay conscious long enough to buzz them in.

I don’t know how long I waited, but the paramedics finally arrived and came straight up to my flat. They put a heart monitor on my chest, they gave me oxygen, and they checked my vital signs.

Once they were confident they could move me, they put me on a wheeled-stretcher and took me to their ambulance.

From my place, it’s a very short drive to St. Mary’s hospital in Paddington. They brought me straight to casualty, which as you can imagine on a Saturday night, in central London, is fairly busy.

Again, I’m not certain how long I waited, but they took blood samples, checked my vital signs repeatedly and gave me an injection of something. I still don’t know what it was.

The blood test showed some chemical marker that confirmed what had happened; I had a heart attack. I was eventually transferred to the coronary unit, where I remained until I was released.

I don’t remember that much about that night and think they might have given me a sedative or something to help me sleep.

During my time in hospital, I had all sorts of tests, including dye being shot into me, so they could look at my heart in detail. None of the tests showed any of the normal signs of a heart disease, like a blocked artery. The doctor’s seemed stumped.

I had the hospital phone my mate Bob, who came to see me the next day. He said I looked terrible. I bet he was right!

I felt terrible. I was weak, so weak, even speaking was an effort. I couldn’t believe how hard it hit me!

I had tubes running into my arm, wires attached to my chest and this weird plastic thing with a red light in it, clamped to my finger. They wanted to fit me with a catheter but I wouldn’t let them! A tube up my cock is not my idea of pleasant!

Bob called my ex-wife and she came to see me. I didn’t really expect that, but she was very concerned and surprisingly supportive.

She said she was worried about my drug use too, which is actually quite funny as the one occasion when she caught me with cocaine, was only the second time I had ever tried it.

Now that I think of it, that night when I tried coke for the second time was a real turning point for me and not a good one.

The escort who sold me that charlie is the one who originally put me in touch with Elvis, my dealer. I guess you could say that night put into motion events that contributed to near demise.

As my ex-wife is a nurse, she read my chart. I watched her read it with a pensive expression on her face, as she probably understood all the notes and test results far better than I ever could.

She wouldn’t tell me what it said though; instead explaining that it was up to my doctor to give me this information.

She asked me something quite strange; she asked me if I had been faithful to her during our marriage. At the time, I didn’t realise why.

I told her, with a perfectly straight face and no irony in my voice, that indeed I had been loyal and monogamous the entire time.

Under those circumstances, what else could I have said?

She didn’t have her daughter with her, which I guess was a blessing and I didn’t ask where she was; it’s none of my concern anyway.

She really is my ex-wife now, finally. When I was released from hospital and returned to my flat, the final divorce paperwork, the decree absolute, was awaiting me.

Maybe it had already been issued when she visited me, which could explain why she asked me if I ever cheated, but it was still kind of her to take the time to see me.

That's the thing about my ex-wife, even though she royally fucked me over with the baby, she is still capable of unexpected moments of kindness. Go figure.

My doctor, a cardiologist, is quite a character and has a great sense of humour. He was born in India, but has lived here in the UK for many, many years.

He seemed to take it as a challenge to discover what was behind my heart attack and ordered many tests.

I didn’t want to tell the doctor about my drug use. It was a combination of embarrassment and fear; I’m ashamed of my behaviour and I was afraid that the doctor might be duly bound to report me to the police or something.

Thankfully, neither was the case.

I could see how frustrated the doctor was becoming, as each test he ran on me came back negative. Finally, I felt so badly that I explained to him exactly what my lifestyle had been like for the last year or so.

I confessed to everything in lurid detail, I didn’t leave anything out.

My doctor listened with rapt attention, surprised by my revelations.

The doctor told me how lucky I was, how this could have been much, much worse. He explained that rest, exercise and a “change in lifestyle” were all I needed to get back to my former self.

Can it really be that simple?

I’ve been for some rehabilitation already and they’ve suggested I join a gym and keep up a light exercise regime until I build up my strength.

That’s the thing, I just always feel tired and I don’t know what I can do about that.

On the night of my heart attack, I had never been so frightened in my life.

On the night of my heart attack, my life changed completely.

On the night of my heart attack, I thought I would die.

I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’ve been given a second chance. I’m not going to squander it. I’m going to make the most of every second I have left.