How I survived a heart attack

The first thing I needed was luck; plenty of it and all at the right moment. Like a deck of cards, one card falls and the whole edifice comes tumbling down.

Next I needed several angels with time on their hands. One thing to bear in mind is that before the artery ruptures, the pain will kill you.

Not joking. The pain is the killer.

In the middle of unspeakable suffering you are completely aware that if you don’t get help very soon your heart will explode which makes perfect sense; no machinery even a perfect one can withstand that kind of punishing. Like any well-designed artifact it has proven-stress limits after which it disintegrates.

The chest pains started one night 25 years ago as a small but clearly defined stabbing in my chest and left arm. I was in my hotel room during a trip to New York. Called reception and asked for a doctor.“Ma’am you have to authorize me to call 911, you could be having a heart attack”. What? Moi? Impossible.“Ma’am you have 20 seconds to decide”. So I said yes. Minutes later three paramedics – out of Hollywood Central casting, a White guy, a Latino woman and a Black dude - were in my room. They took me to Bellevue where I spent the next 24 hours in the emergency ward surrounded by the flotsam of the city: winos, stabbing victims, DOD’s, battered women all of them screaming profanities or screaming in pain -except the DOD’s. After 24 hours they let me go. My enzymes did not show “a coronary event”.

No happiest person has ever walked out into the dark freezing Sunday sidewalks. Then for many years nothing happened.

I got married, moved to Paradise. Was living the good life.

But in 2014 I took on new responsibilities and starting spending time in Lima. My blood pressure went up and the pains came back, as strong as before but for very short periods and only every now and then. Saw a cardio specialist. He ran tests and gave me drugs to monitor my blood pressure. Pain got better, blood pressure shot up from time to time, but he attributed that to my stressful position. In 2017 I was back home in Paradise- but not before the evil forces that run social media hanged me out to dry. The pains continued. A broken heart will not kill you, but hatred unleashed will do the job every time.

Saw another cardio, he upped the drugs and said it was probably heartburn, “Your heart is ok”.

After a year of pandemic stress the stabs were coming several times a day. Went back to see cardio. “Take more antacids. The pain in your arm is probably just a pinched nerve”. Hum. Then one Saturday night the pain come back and never left. Doubled over, holding unto my chest I grabbed my phone and ran down the stairs to get my husband all the while trying not to scare him to death. “Hospital. Please. Now.” My voice just a croak between muffled screams. He was perfectly cool and calm. Got me in the car, drove down the bumpy dirt road while I groaned in agony. We were at the local clinic in 20 minutes flat.

I remember getting out, walking inside like a hunchback while muttering to no one in particular, “Please, please, please”. They got me inside a room, put me on a monitor and inserted a drip in my arm and when I heard “morphine!” I knew the pain was on its way out.

I was placed in a storage room on a rubber mattress very close to a post-Covid patient on a ventilator that rattled like a lawnmower. A doctor came and said, “You need a procedure we don’t do here. We need to send you to a big city. I am looking for an ambulance or a sanitary plane. We’ll see about it tomorrow”. I was still in my clothes. I desperately wanted to see my husband. Not possible because of Covid. I bunched up my jacket into a makeshift pillow and tried to sleep. The night was long, noisy, sleepless, staff kept bumping into my bed as they walked by. Next morning the doctor informed me no transport was available. “All systems have collapsed with Covid. There may be an ambulance later today, but not sure”. Nearest city with facilities was 7 hours away; I knew I would not make it. With no pain now I took matters into my hands, sent a message to my sister in BA and phoned a private plane broker I had used before. She was about to leave for lunch at a farm with no signal, but said not to worry; “I’ll cancel and get you out to BA today”.

The hours ticked by very slowly. By 5 pm she confirmed the jet had just left BA with 2 doctors on board. “I will call when they are landing”.

5 to 8 pm were the longest 3 hours of my entire life.

At 8.30 pm I did the 20-minute drive to the airport on a wooden stretcher in a hot, narrow ambulance, with no A/C and no suspension, the same that would have taken me to the nearest city 7 hours away.

I said good bye to my husband through the ambulance window and boarded the plane.

The first part of the 2 plus-hour flight was uneventful. Night was falling and I could see thunder and lightning at the distance.

And then we slammed into the storm.

I gripped a doctor’s hand while the tiny jet pitched and rolled like a kite in the wind, lighting flashing outside. The chubby doctor apologized, said “I’m sorry my hands are sweating” (I think he was as terrified as I was). “Noooo. I don’t mind! Means you are alive!” While thinking, “Oh fuck. Might as well go down now and end this misery”.

We didn’t and when we landed –next to Messi’s huge jet- they placed me in an ambulance, the medical version of a Rolls Royce Silver Phantom. I slept all the way to the hospital.

When we arrived I thought I was in a hospital in St. Gallen.

I was placed in a special unit, 5 people appeared. Within minutes they had ran tests, hooked me to a last-generation monitor and got the IV in. Close to midnight my sister’s GP, who had organized the whole thing, appeared to check on me; a dapper figure dressed in a beautifully cut grey jacket. I slept for an uninterrupted 9 hours.

The next morning they came for what I thought would be more tests. Instead I was wheeled directly into the operating room, several people already inside in front of a humongous screen. They inserted a catheter into my femoral artery. It didn’t hurt. I was awake the whole time.

“Yep. There it is; 99.9% blockage”. I asked the guy nearest me “Are you the doctor? What are you going to do?” “Who said I was a doctor?” (Oh boy. What now?) “I am an artist” And so he was too: an artist, a cowboy and a Formula One driver.

Also a terrible and terrific flirt. Kept asking me why I had married a Belgian guy. Midway through the procedure I got cheeky, “I know Doc what you are trying to do. You want to distract me and make me forget you are going into my heart”.

He beamed a smile and we became fast friends.

He went in and repaired the artery known as The Widow Maker. Later I learned that even with a 95% blockage, if the Widow is not dealt with quickly, you don't make it.

Two days later they sent me home to my sister’s. The first days I welled up all the time; I understand this often happens when someone touches your heart.

People have asked me if the experience has changed my perception of God; the question is too personal to answer. But I do know that every day angels roam the Earth helping people like me. On the road to recovery I met the seven angels who saved my life.

Can you find them?

Today marks one month from the day I began the rest of my life.