HEALTH SCARE...
Jaysus’.
“But the doctor told me it was OK, that I wasn’t dying. I had a build-up of cholesterol that had been going on for years.
“Apparently, I could have eaten fish heads and rice all my life and it still would have happened.”
In fact, until that point, Jason had lived a healthy lifestyle by anyone’s standards.
A regular cyclist, he went for 10km runs at least twice a week and wasn’t much of a drinker. He’d cadged the odd cigarette on a night out, but not for years.
At just 49, heart disease was not on his radar — but in hindsight he accepts he’d had a heads-up 10 years earlier.
“Back then I was going to Australia for work and I had to have a health check before I left,” he said.
“The doctor asked me, ‘OK, Jason, is there any history of heart conditions in the family?’
My dad had a pacemaker and seven stents and my mum had been given a triple heart bypass.
“So he told me we needed to check things out, but I had to leave for Australia and didn’t have time. He said ‘When you come back we’ll do tests, because if we catch problems early, we can stop them early.’
Time
“I never got round to it.”
Fast forward a decade and Jason was on the operating table having five stents – tiny tubes that widen blocked arteries – inserted in an angioplasty procedure.
“It was a scary experience,” he said. “But there are no nerve endings in your heart so you just feel a pressure.”
After a day in hospital to recover, Jason was back home with partner Tracy Power.
“I’d advise anyone after a procedure like that to have someone with you when you get home,” he said.
“My doctor said, ‘We might not have cracked you open, but you did have heart surgery.’ I was quite weak.”
Jason now kicks off a brand-new UK tour, Unblocked, in September after a run at this month’s Edinburgh Festival.