Mytime Active Stories - Wendy Fairservice
"Heart Smart gave me my confidence back" - After suffering a heart attack when she was 81, Wendy Fairservice has found her way back to health through cardiac rehabilitation with Mytime Active’s Heart Smart programme.
After suffering a heart attack when she was 81, Wendy Fairservice has found her way back to health through cardiac rehabilitation with Mytime Active’s Heart Smart programme. Four years on, the supervised classes are a firm fixture in her week.
“My heart attack came completely out of the blue,” says Wendy. “I had no symptoms whatsoever, so it was quite a shock. I was very fit; I used to go to exercise classes and I regularly did yoga.”
Wendy was blue-lighted to King’s College Hospital in London and spent three days there before being allowed home. “Having a heart attack is a physical, mental and emotional struggle. For me, it was so unexpected that it totally knocked me for six,” Wendy continues. “When you experience something as major as a heart attack, you lose your confidence.”
The cardiac team at King’s referred Wendy to an eight-week cardiac rehabilitation course at Mytime Active’s Spa at Beckenham. The weekly classes were led by two instructors, with three cardiac nurses on hand to check participants’ blood pressure before and after each session. Wendy says: “The instructors were encouraging and friendly, and made the exercises enjoyable. Having the cardiac nurses on hand was a real comfort. So soon after a heart attack, it’s incredibly reassuring to have trained nurses nearby, should there be any problems.”
After two months, Wendy moved into the 12-week Heart Smart programme at the Walnuts Leisure Centre, led by exercise specialist Mark Goldsmith (pictured above). “Mark immediately put me at my ease. There was absolutely no way I would have had the confidence to get back into exercise on my own. This was a lovely, gentle re-introduction,” she says. “Mark has a great sense of humour; he makes every session fun and something to look forward to each week. I’ve met some lovely people who have become friends; we now see each other outside the class. It’s so encouraging to be with others who have been through similar health scares.”
Every Heart Smart class starts with a 15-minute warm-up, during which Mark gives a short talk on a different subject, from heart conditions to nutrition, diet and medication and finishes the class with a short cool down and relaxation. “It is so useful, we all have so much confidence in him,” says Wendy. “The classes built up my confidence and now I exercise every week, doing yoga and other group exercise classes as well as Heart Smart. It’s a lifestyle now; I have improved my wellbeing immeasurably and I couldn’t do without it. Heart Smart is an opportunity not to be missed for anyone with heart health is