My dad had a heart attack this morning.

At least, all the signs seem to point that way.

On the way to work this morning he started suffering from what he called "almost unbearably excruciating" chest pains, popped into the nearest Boots store and was treated by their onsite paramedic, who then called an ambulance. He was taken to the only hospital in the district which has the capacity to immediately operate on suspected heart attack victims and within two hours was in good spirits and trying to cope with being pampered by the hospital staff.

He's a Deacon at the church I grew up in and their support and prayer has definitely had a positive effect as last reports say that he is in high spirits and no immediate danger.

My mum was so panicked that there was a danger she'd end up in the next bed along, but I think the night will help put a less worrying perspective on the whole event and we're now waiting for the results of the 48 hours of close monitoring and the Doctors' investigation into what actually happened to him.

How did I react? In the usual way - calm, methodical and giving hope and strength to anyone who needed it. The way I see it, someone has to stay in charge during emergencies like this and invariably that someone ends up being me as everyone else seems to go to pieces!

It wasn't really a shock to me, as he's always had very high blood pressure and a volatile nature which meant that realistically he was always going to suffer a heart attack at some point. Frankly, I always assumed that his first would be his last, and hopefully it will be - thankfully not in the terminal sense I expected.

What happens next will presumably a fundamental life change for him. No longer will he be allowed to walk everywhere just as fast as his legs will take him, I'd prefer that he didn't try to be in charge of every situation and stopped worrying about the minutiae of his life, such as how many extra phone batteries are on charge, or how many bottles of milk are in the fridge, or whether or not the dog needs walking RIGHT NOW AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME or in half an hour.

It boils down to the fact that he feels he must be a leading part of every decision that's made - and when he doesn't agree with a decision, or can't see the sense of it, he immediately gets angry. This will be the hardest thing he will have to adjust to - the fact that he's not necessarily in charge anymore.

The most difficult part of his rehabilitation will quite possibly be coming to terms with the warning his body has given him. He's always been of the opinion that his way of doing things is the right way and now it should be clear to him that this isn't necessarily so. One example of this was his insistence that we leave his credit cards with him in hospital in case he needed anything. It shows that he is having problems understanding that for the next couple fo days at least he will be bedridden and in need of nothing that the nurses will not be able to bring him.

We didn't leave his cards, by the way, just a handful of short change and a number of admonitions that he let himself be looked after.

I could easily carry on spouting off in this manner for hours, but I'm going to leave it here. I'm looking forward to talking to the aftercare nurses and visiting him tomorrow afternoon, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he adjusts to his more sedate lifestyle. I want to play a more active part in my parents life now as I am convinced that they need a calming influence and a voice of reason - neither of which are character traits associated with my hypertense mother, my overly assertive father or my deeply troubled sister.

Life just got much more complex, a bit more difficult and quite possibly far more interesting.