Dame Jacqueline Wilson's big treat after a marathon signing session used to be
a bowl of chips and a bottle of champagne. But since the bestselling
children's author suffered heart failure in May, followed by major heart
surgery, these are forbidden pleasures.
The signing sessions have also had to go. When Wilson's latest novel, Cookie,
is published this month, she will give just one short talk instead of the
usual three-week tour. It is a huge blow, not only for thousands of Wilson's
8 to 14-year-old fans, but also for the author. Her books have sold more
than 25 million copies in the UK and have been translated into 34 different
languages. Her most famous creation is the streetwise care-home kid Tracy
Beaker.
Wilson's health crisis threatened to prevent her going to Buckingham Palace in
May to receive her DBE (Dame of the British Empire) insignia from the Queen,
but Wilson was determined not to let it spoil her big day.
Her health scare came out of the blue. She did not smoke or drink much and she
wasn't overweight. “It was a big shock; I thought I was immortal,” says
Wilson, 62. “I've always prided myself on being hale and hearty: I kept fit,
got up at 6.30 to swim 40 or 50 lengths every morning and ate a healthy
diet.”
Wilson is petite and perky. We're talking in the living room of her pretty
Victorian villa in Kingston, a book-lined treasure trove of toy dogs, lace
cushions and Roman Catholic artefacts. She shares it with a friend; her
32-year marriage ended 11 years ago. She has just returned from a restful
holiday in Paris with her 41-year-old daughter, Emma, a Cambridge academic.
Her health problems started in April, when she noticed that she was
breathless when she went upstairs; then her chest started to feel tight. She
put the symptoms down to age, stress and overwork but by May they were
impossible to ignore. “I woke up in the middle of one Friday night and I
couldn't breathe properly. Then my chest started making weird gurglings and
I thought, ‘That sounds like fluid on the lungs; this is it big-time,
emergency'. I was coughing a lot and I was scared.”
“I was hoping it might be panic attacks”
She was kept awake by the same frightening symptoms for three nights before
going to her GP. “If I'd had real pain I would have thought that I was
having a heart attack, and by the morning everything seemed OK. I think I
was hoping it might be just panic attacks.”
Things moved swiftly once she saw her GP. She was referred to Kingston
Hospital and then the Royal Brompton for tests. X-rays showed a seriously
enlarged heart and lots of fluid on the lung. An echocardiogram - a cardiac
ultrasound - indicated “massive” weakening of her heart muscle. The left and
right sides of the heart were not beating in synch and her heart was
functioning at only 26 per cent.
The cardiologists decided to operate to insert a type of defibrillator that
will restart Wilson's heart if it stops and potentially strengthen the heart
muscle to make it more efficient. They also prescribed diuretics to clear
the extra lung fluids, and [angiotensin-converting enzyme] inhibitors to
lower blood pressure and reduce strain on the heart. The first dose of the
drugs in hospital made Wilson so dizzy that she called for help. “Suddenly
there were oxygen masks and two people monitoring me. Part of me was
thinking, ‘Help, am I dying?' and another part was thinking ‘Wow, this is
really important'.”
The “only really frightening part” was after she came round from the
three-and-a-half hour defibrillator operation in June, when one side of her
chest swelled alarmingly and painfully, a reaction that occurs in 10 per
cent of cases. She was given more painkillers to control the pain and was
reassured that the swelling would go down eventually. She left hospital
after five days.
Pointing to a neat diagonal scar, she laughs. “It's a bit like having an iPod
stuck in your chest; I can feel a sort of heaviness there. For a while it
did seem a bit weird, but it's quite reassuring. If it ever zaps into action
to resuscitate you, they say it's a bit like being kicked by a donkey. The
booklets say, ‘You may feel fazed by this and need to sit down for a few
minutes'. I think, bloody hell, I should think so too!”
“I live in the present”
Living with the possibility that your heart might stop sounds terrifying, and
Wilson admits that although she is not religious she did light a candle in
Notre Dame in Paris. She touches wood as she says: “You just think it
probably won't happen at all, and if it does, how nice if the defibrillator saves my life. The weird thing is that before this happened I would have
said I was a hypochondriac. Yet since it happened I don't worry about it too
much; I wasn't even particularly worried about the operation. You basically
live in the present.
“After the operation I had one or two crying spells, thinking I wanted to live
into my eighties or nineties and that's not likely any more. With all these
drugs, and a new and a slightly more boring lifestyle, I'm likely to be fine
for years. But it does make you think that it probably has shortened my life
considerably and I feel I must make the most of each day, and prioritise.”
Beta blockers and creativity fears
Tests have shown that Wilson's heart is getting better, but she admits that if
the improvement stops it will be hard for to stay positive as she knows that
her age probably rules out a transplant. Her cardiologist has said Wilson
may need beta-blockers, which curb stress hormones and take strain off the
heart. She is worried that they may make her less creative, but her
cardiolgist reassures her they won't.
She doesn't even begin to think about giving up work, although she's writing
for only half an hour a day; even so she still has two books on the go. She
struggles with the total ban on salt and finds elderflower cordial a poor
substitute for wine. Where once she crammed in several things in a day, now
she focuses on just one.
Her cardiologist suspects her heart failure may be linked to a bout of flu
over Christmas, which may have inflamed the heart muscle. In hindsight,
Wilson thinks she was rash to keep going. But learning to pace herself
hasn't been easy for a writer who describes herself as “generally a bit of
an obsessive person - I always swam, every day. Now if it fits in, fine, but
if I'm feeling a bit tired, I don't have to. And if I don't get all my
letters written I just think, so what?
“For years I've been saying that I don't have to work as hard as this, this is
silly, but never quite gave up on the million and one things I did. Now I
really have to.”
Cookie, by Jacqueline Wilson is published by Doubleday, £12.99, on Thursday.
It is available from Times Books First at £11.69,incl p&p. Phone
0870 16080 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
The lowdown
Heart failure means that the heart is not pumping enough blood around the body.
Causes Damage to the heart muscle caused by disease or a heart attack,
long-term strain caused by high blood pressure, damage to heart valves, or a
heart rhythm abnormality.
Effects Because the heart is not working hard enough, blood supply
throughout the body is reduced. This can cause tiredness, breathlessness and
a build-up of fluid in legs and abdomen. Sufferers are more prone to other
potentially dangerous conditions such as abnormal heart rhythms, stroke and
heart attack.
Treatment Drugs that slow down heart deterioration and take strain off
the heart are the main treatment. For people with a life expectancy of less
than six months, a heart transplant is an option. The insertion of a
defibrillator to strengthen and restart the heart is increasingly recognised
as good for hearts so damaged that they might stop beating.
Outlook It depends on how bad the damage is, but studies indicate that
the death rate among people with heart failure is four times greater than
among the general population.
Heart attack myths
Heart failure and heart attack are the same thing People sometimes talk about
heart failure when they mean heart attack. A heart attack happens suddenly
when the heart muscle has been starved of blood and oxygen by an artery
blockage and tissue dies. Heart failure happens over weeks or months and
needs treatment for the rest of your life.
A heart attack causes crushing pain Most cause severe pain in the centre of
the chest, but in older people and people with diabetes there may be no
symptoms.
