Life can throw some awful challenges at you. There was I, believing I had a nagging chest infection. It turns out I have heart failure.

Doctors delivered this shocking news to me last week after investigating the severe breathlessness I had developed following our day-trip to Dieppe.

I knew I was unwell but I thought it was something to do with phlegm in my lungs that hadn't cleared up for a few weeks. I had no idea I was in view of the pearly gates.

An X-ray has revealed my heart is dilated and is working much less efficiently. They've told me I'm suffering from postpartum cardiomyopathy, a very rare complication of giving birth. Apparently, this affects just one in ten thousand pregnancies, so aren't I the lucky one?

Still, looking on the bright side, there is a good chance my heart will shrink and our lives will return to normal.

Even if it doesn't, the medication I'm on should eventually restore me to a reasonable state of health. I may now never run a marathon. But I can live without that.

The important thing for me to do at the moment to aid my recovery is rest as much as possible. With a bonny three-month-old baby and an exuberant four-year-old, this was looking unlikely in the short term until my husband's employers generously allowed him to take four weeks of compassionate leave.

He has been entertaining the children largely by taking them to Waitrose to stock up on healthy heart foods.

We've also had my mum to stay for a few days, which made a world of difference to our domestic affairs. Like many women of her generation, she is capable of rocking the baby with one hand while digging over the garden with the other.

She has ironed bed sheets that have never been exposed to hot metal before and our kitchen floor is so clean it has changed colour.

Meanwhile, I've been languishing on the sofa like a fragile Edwardian lady, only moving to answer phone calls from well-wishers or open the door to people delivering flowers.

To alleviate the boredom, I've now got three books on the go and am once again thinking of starting my novel. This is the ideal time, of course, although I still don't have a plot or any characters.

Concerned for my mental wellbeing, my friend, Jenny, has lent me a couple of 500-piece jigsaw puzzles.

She says she finds them therapeutically absorbing so the other night my husband and I began doing one of them together. Given my aversion to this sort of thing usually, he was pleased to see I was enthusiastic.

But after struggling to find half a dozen pieces that fitted together and refusing to follow his "let's separate all the blue bits from the grey bits" strategy I had to admit defeat and switch on the television.

My husband was completely hooked, however, and continued until well past midnight. As a result he has developed a temporary stoop, or "jigsaw back".

One of the most disappointing aspects of this sudden illness is that we now won't be going on holiday to Norway at the end of the month. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to the North Sea crossing and had seriously doubted whether the trip was a good idea.

Now, naturally, I have a different perspective. I'd gladly swap heart failure for a 24-hour ferry journey with a seasick husband, a grumpy four-year-old and a fretful baby.