MY HEALTH EXPERIENCE: JOHN HEALYI have been on the heart transplant list for six months
I’VE ALWAYS been a hyperactive, hyper-energetic type of person. I have worked in hotels for 25 years and that demands long hours. I was suited to it, but the last thing you tend to look after is your health.
I emigrated to London in 1988, worked in the five-star hotel industry, moved to New York in 1990 and then moved back to London at the end of 1991.
In 1995, I ran the restaurant Mezzo for Sir Terence Conran for four years. It was a 350-seater restaurant on the site of the old Marquee Club. We would do 1,000 covers a day with 100 staff. It was like having a mad nightclub going all the time.
It took every bit of focus and energy to run the place. I was working an average of 70 hours a week and not thinking about it, but I was so wired I couldn’t sleep when I got home.
I knew Soho like the back of my hand. It was my second home. My drinking became out of control – a lot of vodka with a dash of cranberry was my poison – and I was smoking a minimum of a packet of cigarettes a day.
There were other substances as well, but I was always responsible and was able to get up for work in the morning.
When I think about it now, I don’t know how I survived it. I really should be dead.
The harder I worked, the faster my life became. My whole life was so fast and insane. In 1999, I came back to Ireland and gave up everything. I lived a very clean life.
Then I started working in the Four Seasons Hotel at the height of the Celtic Tiger. With my cleaner lifestyle, my whole focus became work.
I was the restaurant manager in the hotel. I quickly gained a reputation. Everybody gravitated towards my personality and willingness to help. I let it consume me completely.
I started doing The Restaurantprogramme in 2002. On top of that my diet was shocking. I lived on cigarettes, coffee and chips. I never ate properly.
We who work in the food business have a reputation of being the worst people to eat. I never even thought about what I was doing to myself. I ate like a pigeon. I was skin and bone.
Finally, in January 2007 after Christmas I keeled over and had a heart attack.
I was sitting at home and I experienced excruciating pain. I knew it wasn’t stress or a muscle pain. There was something going on.
My whole body went into a surreal kind of a high like I had taken some drugs. I knew I was in trouble. I knew I had to call an ambulance.
I ended up in St Vincent’s Hospital. They put in two stents. With the trauma of the heart attack and the exhaustion my body was under, my serotonin level went through the roof.
When I came out of hospital, I felt happier and healthier than ever, but it was a false high.
That crashed in August and I went into a mad depression and anxiety. I began drinking very heavily again, having given up the booze in 2001. The old habits began to emerge.
When I realised how bad I was, I rang the Rutland Centre, an addiction clinic for alcohol and drugs, and checked in knowing that I was in trouble.
I did a five-week programme. I had to do it. I was getting suicidal. After I came out I began working again. I was always on the move and I was still smoking.
In November 2009, I had another heart attack at home again in my bed. It was on the morning that I was going into the Rutland Clinic to get my medallion for 18 months’ sobriety.
That heart attack left me with heart failure, which I have been monitoring ever since.
I opened the Sober Holidays villa in Portugal for the businessman Andrew O’Loughlin. I went to Portugal for a year to work in the villa as manager and thought the lifestyle would help my health.
It was an alcohol-free holiday villa in the mountains in the Algarve
I gained a lot of self-knowledge and spiritual healing there.
I returned to Ireland last November to do some tests. I went into the Mater hospital and I did an assessment for a heart transplant.
Now I am on the heart transplant list for six months, but I don’t know when that is going to happen.
There were four transplants carried out in Ireland last year and there are 20 people on the waiting list.
I have done some work with the Irish Kidney Association and the Irish Heart Foundation to increase awareness and the need for organ donors in this country.
I looked at having a heart transplant abroad, but it would cost too much money and it would mean coming off the waiting list here.
I’m not able to work at the moment. I retain fluid in my system and the more activity I do, the more fluid I retain. I can’t afford to put my heart under such pressure. I have to go to bed every afternoon because I simply don’t have the energy.
I’m literally trying to mind myself until I get the transplant. My bag is packed and I’m ready to go to the hospital whenever the time arises.
I’m blessed with a very positive attitude. I meditate every day and I now eat extremely well.
All I know is that I am here and I am handling it very well. You realise what life is all about. The spiritual things are all that matter.
The Wineport Lodge in Athlone is hosting a special evening of
The Restaurant
tonight at 7.30pm, with a champagne reception followed by a three-course dinner to raise funds for John Healy, the Irish Heart Foundation and Irish Kidney Association. Tickets costing €100 are available from the Wineport Lodge, tel: 090-6439010.
In conversation with
RONAN McCREAVY
