Friday, March 29, 2024

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: My heart under attack

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I enjoy life. I love helping people, but I also enjoy annoying the hell out of some others – especially those who have the “power” to assist their fellow man, but who seem to exist for one purpose: to gather as much material possessions as they can, even at the expense of those who have so little.
People who know me also know that I have never harboured any desire to join the ever swelling ranks of centenarians in Barbados. I understand the sense of achievement of those who make it, but if living to some “ripe old age” means I have to depend on someone else to bathe me, clean my bottom, find my misplaced teeth so I can eat, etc, then let me go while I can still take care of myself.
Consistent with that, anyone who really knows me also knows that I do not fear death. I really do not bother too much about how it comes. Not that I go seeking it out, but I do believe in that old saying – when it is your time, it is your time.
I am not perfect, far from it, but I do believe in God, and that there is a Heaven and a Hell, and that we will be rewarded according to how we live our lives here on Earth. So when my time comes, whether violently, quietly in my sleep or “somewhere in between”, I care not because I do not believe I will have any choice in the matter.
And to those who might be tempted to say “I can’t wait for Morris to go”, I also say, it matters not to me because I can do nothing to you and neither can you do anything to me after that time.
What’s this all about, you ask?
Well, last Sunday night just around midnight I was curled up comfortably in my bed when I felt a little “stick” in my chest. Then another, and another. My mind started to race and soon the little sticks turned into a burning sensation that became more intense with every minute.
Since it was all confined to my left breast area, my head became filled with thoughts of a heart attack. I remember that at a previous check-up visit to cardiologist Dr Raymond Massay, he told me to always keep some aspirin handy since chewing on one could make the difference between life and death during such an attack.
I slithered out of bed expecting at any moment to be hit by “the big one”, a jolt to the chest equivalent to being struck by lightning. Somehow, in the darkness I found the aspirin bottle and decided it might make more sense to take two ­– just in case.
For another half-hour the combined sensation of being repeatedly stuck by a whole pack of needles at once and someone pressing a hot clothes iron on my chest persisted. Then, as suddenly as it started, it ended. No other feelings of illness, nothing. But by then the dominant feeling was one of anxiety, wondering just what had taken place in my body.
I made up my mind then that I was going to see the doctor first thing in the morning. Then the sun rose and I remembered it was Kadooment Day and all thoughts of going to the doctor vanished. It was going to be a long day in the office – as Kadooment Days tend to be. And I fully expected to be bone tired by the end – and so I was.
So guess what happened next? I was driving home when suddenly my left hand seemed unusually tired from my shoulder to my elbow. It was like I needed that much more effort to move it – and suddenly I recalled reading something that said that just before a heart attack it is normal to feel a strong tingling in the left hand. This was not exactly a tingling, but my mind was racing in all directions as I constantly asked myself whether I would make it home before the ticker stopped.
Would I manage to push the gear shift into neutral and cruise to a stop? Will I slam into a wall or oncoming traffic? Will I die behind the wheel? What if I am severely injured; how will they treat me at the QEH?
But I made it home safely, headed straight for the aspirin bottle and downed two more of the little tablets. When I awoke yesterday morning I was still alive.
After some poking and prodding and being hooked up to some electronic equipment, and being advised that more tests would have to be done next week, I left Dr Massay’s office with a little more assurance that my heart did not appear ready to stop working – but you never know because that is not his call. It is His call.
So if you realise that I am not bothered by anything you say or do right now, it is because I feel like I have been given a second chance, even if it is only my imagination.
I care not if Owen is now a Dem or if he is about to become Minister of Finance in Freundel’s first Cabinet reshuffle. I am living by a new motto, one from Crop Over 2014: I’m too blessed to be stressed.

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