Nobody wants to take a phone call telling you to see your GP urgently. But that’s what happened to me last December. I was on a train travelling home to London from a great gig in Yorkshire the night before, and I was on the highest of highs. I’m 54 and since 2002 I’ve been a singer with The South (previously I was in The Beautiful South).

I was doing my dream job. You have to be fit to be on stage, what with the running around, the dancing and the singing. But after that Yorkshire gig, as was now habitual, although I was elated, I was also feeling exhausted.

I noticed I was more fatigued than usual after the first of three bouts of Covid back in 2020 when I’d lost some strength in my legs. I’d got through that gig in Yorkshire but I was utterly wiped out.

As I was slumped on the train, thinking about nothing but how shattered I was, my doctor rang and said, ‘Could you come in today to discuss your ECG results?’ I was worried but put it to the back of my mind for the three-hour-long journey, never imagining the horror that would ensue.

I’ve worked very hard to get where I am. After studying at Cambridge University I temped at record labels to pay my rent, and did gigs in the evening and at weekends. My big break was with The Beautiful South in 2002, joining full-time in 2003. At least my law degree came in handy when I was reading my own contracts.

I’ve played Glastonbury twice, and met Brandon Flowers from the Killers at T in the Park. While I was on stage he watched from the wings and said I had a lovely voice. I literally couldn’t speak.

It was incredible performing with bands that had been part of my childhood. I barely dared say hello to Rick Astley, and was so starstruck when we were on the same line-up as Adam Ant, I couldn’t even speak to him.

Since the age of 18, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. I love it, but it can be gruelling. Yet although I still felt like a teenager in my head, other body parts seemed to be slowing down. The South does around 50 gigs a year across the UK, and I also perform in another group, Southern Beauty, which performs The Beautiful South greatest hits in jazz style.

When I started to notice that I felt tired, I put it down to menopause, the usual pressures of juggling family life and a punishing schedule. Andy, my husband, and I met at Cambridge in 1992. He works as a tech analyst, and we have two children – a 20-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son.

My six-year-long deterioration was very gradual – a good analogy is that I was like a frog in boiling water, not realising the temperature was rising and I was in danger.

It got to the point where if I left something I needed upstairs I wouldn’t get it because it was too exhausting climbing the stairs.

On the Tube, I’d get off, walk ten steps, then slump against the wall because I was so dizzy. My legs had no strength in them at all. I’d wait till the dizziness passed – holding on to something for a minute or so.

And I was constantly breathless. Andy used to think I was in a bad mood because I’d huff and puff so much, but in fact I was constantly trying to draw in enough oxygen.

O f course, I was scared, but more because I thought that this was a terrible part of getting older. I’d always had low blood pressure, which can make you feel dizzy. Perhaps, I thought, it was this.

In 2023 I went to my GP for the first time, and they agreed it might be my low blood pressure and sent me on my way. Because of my vegan diet, my aversion to processed foods and the fact that I didn’t add in any salt to my home cooking, it was suggested that I should increase my salt intake as a way to combat my low blood pressure and try electrolytes when I exercised. I also went on HRT. But it didn’t stop the exhaustion.

I went back to my GP and had my bloods checked; because I’d been vegan for more than ten years, I wanted to rule out anaemia and possible deficiencies. Everything came back fine.

And yet I was shattered. Bone-deep tired. I had six years of doing less and less. I was able to carry on working in my singing career, but very little else. I was constantly telling myself I was just getting older, while being in awe of other women my age who seemed to have boundless energy, all cracking on. Even then I thought maybe my menopause symptoms were simply just worse than those of my friends.

The gigs tend to be Friday to Sunday, and all around the country, so as a band we usually stay in hotels, returning home on Sunday evening or Monday morning. But once I had stepped through my front door, it would be Wednesday before I could even think about functioning again. It was a cycle that meant I got nothing done, and I was constantly puzzled by, and trying to mask, my exhaustion. It was getting harder and harder to maintain any level of normality.

Last year things came to a head. My husband and kids started to comment on my lack of stamina, because if we went for a walk I was so slow. It was a running joke, but the fact is that I simply couldn’t keep up.

We’re very lucky to have a second home in Menorca, which belongs to Andy’s family. It’s set atop a steep hill that we jokingly named the Stairway to Hell because it’s on such a high gradient.

Last summer I couldn’t walk up it. That was a turning point. Although even then I think we were less worried than irritated!

So I went back to the GP. They did the usual blood tests, and once again, all was well. Low blood pressure, yes, but nothing dramatic.

Then my GP said something that may have saved my life: ‘Let’s do an ECG as well, just to be sure.’

Six months earlier, I’d had an ECG that had revealed nothing. This time, it told a very different story.

The electrics in my heart simply weren’t working properly. Half my heartbeats were being generated by my heart; the other half, it turned out, weren’t happening at all.

I was immediately referred to a cardiologist. We are fortunate enough to have private healthcare through Andy’s work, and I am doubly fortunate to have an old Cambridge friend who is a consultant cardiologist. I went to see my friend, Dr Asif Qasim, and he was amazing.

At our first appointment he informed me I had what’s called a heart block, a condition where the electrical signals controlling your heart beat are delayed or interrupted. They are graded from one to four. Four is fatal. Mine was two.

I went to see Asif on my own, but remember sending Andy a WhatsApp message filled with expletives. Asif explained that surgery to implant a pacemaker was my only option.

I was terrified, though eternally grateful that I saw a doctor who explained everything carefully and sympathetically. I was loath to have surgery. Heart surgery is a daunting prospect, but I didn’t have a choice – as was pointed out rather starkly. Without surgery, I wouldn’t be able to drive a car as I might black out, and ultimately, I might die prematurely.

Andy put on a brave face, but I think he was as worried as me. The kids were encouraging, saying that I’d feel amazing once it was done.

This was December 2025, and Asif recommended that I have the operation as soon as possible. I insisted that we wait till New Year, and was booked into the Cleveland Clinic London Hospital, with the operation being performed by Professor Aldo Rinaldi, a consultant cardiologist. I’m still under his care.

Thank goodness I was diagnosed when I was. From that point in mid-December my heart rate deteriorated seriously, and within a month my Fitbit showed that it had gone from 50 beats per minute (bpm) to 34. A normal heart rate is between 60 and 100 bpm.

Below 60 is what’s known as bradycardia – a slow heart rate. It’s not menopause-related and they don’t think it’s genetic but my family all had their heart health checked, and they’re keeping an eye on my son and my mother, who both have slow heart beats.

Most people need a pacemaker in their 70s; I was just 53 when one was implanted on January 6 this year.

Having a heart operation in your fifties really calls your mortality into question. The idea that a surgeon would be rooting around in my chest cavity and wiring me up like a robot was absolutely terrifying. I always thought if I was seriously unwell I’d be hyperaware – that I’d be bedridden or in pain, but I’d gone for years without realising that anything was wrong with me.

In the first few days after the surgery, I felt as though I was dead. I wasn’t unwell, but there was something missing, an emptiness in my chest.

It was the slow, desperate pounding of my heart. I couldn’t feel it any more. For the last six years I’ve felt it constantly, every now and again missing a beat, and sometimes shuddering, fluttering inside my ribcage.

This is what normality feels like, I realised.

My family have been extraordinary and surprisingly pragmatic. Whether they were putting on a brave face for me or genuinely were that chilled, I don’t know, but they wouldn’t let me lift a finger in those early weeks when I came home. I felt like I was made of cake – I mean literally – I ate so much! After six weeks, I was able to get back to normal. I’ve always been an avid exerciser. Even when my heart wasn’t working properly I walked the dog every day, and did weight lifting, which I started around six years ago.

I started to exercise again, taking it slowly, and consulting pacemaker fitness trainers. I now weight lift three times a week and have added in half an hour of cardio each time, on top of walking the dog for five miles every day.

My cheeks are rosy, because my blood is finally reaching all of my body and I feel amazing. I can see how my heart rate has improved when I am exercising; pre-operation it only reached around 130 bpm and now it’s more like 150. Moving around on stage feels immeasurably easier.

Although, I have been warned to keep an eye on how high my heart-rate goes; it’s now as fine-tuned an instrument as my voice, though it currently feels less reliable.

I can never forget that 50 per cent of my heartbeats are now powered by the pacemaker.

Around every ten years the battery will need replacing, which will mean further surgery and more scar tissue. What frightens me most, looking back, is how easy it would have been to keep blaming menopause.

So many women I know are doing exactly that: exhausted, dizzy, weak, but being told, ’It’s your age, it’s hormones, crack on.’ I’m perimenopausal, I take HRT, and I believe strongly in talking about it openly – but we cannot let menopause become a catch-all label that stops us investigating other, potentially life-threatening issues.

If there’s one message I want other women to take from my story, it’s this: know what feels normal to you, and don’t be fobbed off. Don’t suffer in silence and put everything down to menopause.

If you feel something is wrong, push for answers. Ask for the ECG. Ask for the extra test.

Don’t assume that being in your fifties means you have to accept feeling dog tired and half-alive.

• Alison Wheeler’s new song, If Life Could Always Be Summer, is released on July 3. @alisonwheelermusic. For information about The South gigs, thesouth.co.uk
• As told to Alice Smellie