Ten years ago on a sunny February Sunday morning, my world nearly changed forever. Luckily, due to an incredible team of cardiac medical staff, at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, my husband Nick’s life was saved. I had never even heard of an aortic dissection, so once the ambulance men had ruled out a heart attack, I assumed he would be fine. Well, maybe not fine, but it wouldn’t be serious or fatal. I am glad I was useless at biology at school, and ignorance can be bliss!

We had one daughter up a mountain on a half term school ski trip and our 12 year old was at home with us. I never want to tell a child again that their father may die, or play down the truth to the other one as she flew home not knowing the worst. I knew there was nothing I could do, except get our little family together, to face whatever was coming. After an eight hour operation, the surgeon told us kindly, but with total honesty, that we would have to wait and see how he fared. I won’t lie, I lay awake that night and planned our weeks ahead without him. You go down that rabbit warren of planning, almost as if it means it won’t happen. But, on the Wednesday evening, the surgeon told me he was cautiously optimistic. In a mood of total joy I promised Sandra, the sister on duty, that I would raise £50,000 for the heart unit. Why that figure? Because it seemed an enormous amount of money, and with my experience of fundraising for other good causes, I knew it would require a huge effort. With the help of my incredible friends, and my art world contacts, we raised, via an art auction and two vintage clothes sales, a figure close to £80,000. And that was probably that.

Then Covid came and all the fear, trauma and anxiety of ten years ago came flooding back into my life. I cried every single day for weeks. I was convinced that Nick would be taken into hospital and die alone with covid. Terrifying media coverage fed my worries but somehow I needed to know what was going on. Nick’s aortic dissection was brought on by stress. The kind of stress that took his blood pressure to levels of a fireman’s hose. His aorta couldn’t take the strain and started to unravel. A huge percentage of cases are misdiagnosed and people are sent home to die hours later. We had been very lucky to have had advice from our GP and wise ambulance men. Nick was also fortunate to have a telltale sign of an extremely painful jaw; a small thing but to those in the know, a strong indication of what could be happening inside.

I thought about the nurses and the medical staff who were working in the CTCC (Cardiothorassic Critical care) unit and wondered how on earth they were coping. Ten years ago they worked twelve hour shifts; what must it be like for them now? I wanted to let them know that I would do everything in my power to keep Nick safe, not to let him get ill. I say this knowing I live an incredibly privileged life where that was possible. I am no gym bunny, due to hip surgery as a child and three slipped discs from horses and babies, but I can walk! So I decided I would walk the rough route of the ambulance from the front door Nick walked out of to the A&E department in Oxford. It turns out that that is a marathon. I started training back in September with an official training plan of 14 weeks starting in November, and to date I have walked 260 miles. Sunday 13th February is the big day and I will be walking with Nick at the start, our eldest daughter in the middle and our youngest daughter, who was with me on the day, will walk into the hospital grounds with me. I also have a few friends joining me in between. BBC Radio Oxford will be interviewing me three times along the way on the 13th Feb: 07.10,10.50 and 13.20 if you feel like tuning in!

I want this to be about gratitude, thanks and happiness. I wanted to say thank you, one last time, to the hospital cardiac team. If I can raise enough to buy them a new machine used in cardioversion then that would be fabulous. This machine is currently shared by two departments and it would be much better if they could each have their own. To me it may mean that a tired nurse can finish a cup of tea rather than fetch this machine from the ward they currently share it with. It’s as simple as that. My JustGiving link is below. Thank you.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/alexandra-williams23