'I was touring in Australia in 2011 and I started seeing stars, and had pins and needles around my chest. My wife was with me and she encouraged me to get it checked out. The guy in the medical centre said I had the classic symptoms of angina.
My father died of a heart attack when I was just one year old and many of my uncles died from the same thing. It has always been hovering in the background.
In Australia, I was looked after in the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, and they found a blockage in one of my arteries, which they repaired with a stent. It went very well and I got sorted. I was put on anti-cholesterol medication and aspirin, and that is all I’m on now.
My heart specialist in Cork, Dr Carl Vaughan, told me it was probably the cigarettes that did it for me. I had been off them, but my mother died in 2008 and I went back on cigarettes the day of her funeral. I was on about five or six a day when I had the stent put in.
Exercise and thirst
The artery in which I got the stent was the small one down the back; I'm sure there's a more precise medical term for it. Since then, I've been exercising every day for four or five miles. Sometimes, I drink too much. It's part of the life I lead. I eat more fruit, more fish and vegetables and I've given up the fast food I sometimes ate on the road. No more chips. It's all grand when you're younger to be doing the rock 'n' roll thing.
Everything was fine until I had an episode recently when I was filming the TG4 series, Spillane an Fánaí, which starts on September 16th.
I was having trouble sleeping, and was tired and stressed out a bit.
With the series, I decided to write a song for each town we filmed in. It went very well, so well in fact that an album of the songs, called Life in an Irish Town, is coming out on September 13th. The filming meant very long days. I would work in a pub in each town we visited, and then write a song about it.
There was a film crew following me around for the whole thing with about five or six of us on the go in total. I’m usually a one-man band, so I had to get used to having a crew around again.
The company I worked with, Forefront, was great and I've worked with that group before, but it all took getting used to.
Sleep problems
Also, as I get older, sleep is becoming a problem. Sometimes I'm awake all night. I try meditating and breathing exercises, but they don't always work. In the old days, I would have drunk more alcohol and knocked myself out when I was on the road and not sleeping, but I can't do that any more.
A few months ago during filming, I developed this tightness in my chest and shortness of breath. I went to Castlebar General Hospital straight away, fearing it could be a heart attack. They did every test under the sun and found everything was perfect.
Later, they told me I had experienced a panic attack or an anxiety attack. Just in case, when I got back to Cork, I went to see my heart specialist, and he put me at ease and basically said, “Game on, John,” in relation to the album coming out.
My GP prescribed Xanax, but I have held off taking them until I really need them and I’m going to see how things go over the next while.
There can be a lot of pressure at certain gigs, but I operate at a manageable level so that shouldn’t be an issue for me. I noticed that before the panic attack, there was tension among the crew on the shoot, as you’d normally get, and I felt a slight tightness in my chest.
I could feel the anxiety around me, both mentally and physically, and that's something I now need to be aware of as obviously this is a new thing for me.
Creative space
I walk my dogs every day now and there are beautiful walks around Passage West in Cork where I live. It's also great for clearing my head and writing songs as well. As I'm walking, I usually sing to myself and I get a lot of songs that way.
Once a year, I have a stress test but my heart specialist is positive and his emphasis is on quality of life, and not to be wrapping myself up in cotton wool.
I am on a slightly later timetable than my wife, for example, because I work some nights. But I’m taking it easier on the beer and I have given up cigarettes.
I have a good life and I love my job and, hopefully, the sleep will sort itself out. The older I get, the sweeter it gets and the gigs are much less stressful now. And, with the album and the TG4 series about to be launched, it’s a good time. With my health, I like to think I got a very gentle warning.
I tell people it was a little brush of the guardian angel’s wing. It wasn’t a heavy brush or anything, just a feather-light touch across my chest.
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