Heart scare put me on a path towards a rewarding life
The average person forgets many obstacles they have conquered in life, but one event which will always be memorable to me is a warm day in Boston ten years ago when I went under the surgeon’s scalpel at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the heart of the city.
It was only comforting at the beginning because I was familiar with the facility having been a frequent visitor because it’s where my wife had had a kidney transplant eight years previously and, from day one, I viewed it as one of the best hospitals in North America. Confirmation of this came from the huge banner they consistently hang at their main lobby proudly reminding visitors of the tenth or so year in a row they have achieved a rating as one of the best ten hospitals in the country.
Since my wife’s successful operation, we have had a number of follower-up trips and had fallen in love with the hospital and the general area at Fenway where we always reside close to the famous Fenway Park baseball stadium.
But this was an entirely new ballgame, one which was new to me and frightening with obvious rules to which I had not grown accustomed.
Traumatised, I descended to the basement and headed towards the operation room carried by a Spanish-speaking orderly. It was indeed a tumultuous ordeal. All I could think was that a healthy diet and less greasy food could perhaps have prevented this test of my nerves.
As a consequence, I now hound friends on the Island to eat correctly and avoid high cholesterol foods, avoid smoking and exercise as often as possible.
My pre-operation experience was less traumatic than lots of other people since I had no heart attack, I only became fatigued when I walked any distance.
One night while covering a football match at BAA field, I found it quite challenging walking — for a 50-year-old — from the ground to the adjacent Royal Gazette <$>building.
I was forced to stop at least three times — and then during the days that followed it was just as burdensome to walk from the workplace to the 24-hour Esso Auto Mart.
The initial diagnosis was that my problem was stress related and I was even put on Prozac — a drug to which I was unable to get accustomed.
Time and time again a workmate, Marcus Day, questioned the diagnosis and, the more he questioned it, the more I became uncomfortable with taking those dreadful pills.
Eventually my stress-related test at the hospital led to my going to Brigham, a hospital I chose because of my close ties established over years and, for this I have no regrets.
The surgeon there indicated he would be performing an angiogram and then if that procedure was not successful he would have to perform heart surgery — and after that I was greeted with the grim news when I awoke that he had performed quadruple bypass.
The post-operation period saw the hospital support team give first-class support as I remained in the area for about ten days. The only real pain I experienced emanated from my leg where they removed arteries to place in the heart.
In an effort to ensure that I was mentally able to withstand the traumatic experience, arrangements were also made for me to see a psychologist and this proved to be quite helpful.
Though the entire episode was quite painstaking, it nevertheless has put me on the path towards a rewarding life — one which now enables me to indulge in hobbies such as walking regularly at Clearwater Beach, attending Spanish classes twice a week and travelling often.
But, most importantly, the new lease on life has given me this favourite motto: “It’s great to be alive”.
