Heart attack at 36

It’s been six months since that fateful night.

I was lying down on the couch with my left knee in a compression bandage. I had gout again — and this one was excruciatingly painful. Each time I moved my left knee or any muscles that are attached to it, it would send pain all throughout my body.

At the time, I was taking paracetamol and ibuprofen to reduce the pain, and Colchicine and Allopurinol to get rid of the uric acid.

I’ve had gout since I was 25, and it just seemed to me a fact of life to be in pain once in a while. The past year was particularly even more painful and I went to the hospital a few times to get new medication, hoping to get rid of it ASAP.

On that fateful night, I had just gotten back from the hospital ER because of the extreme pain on my knee. They gave me some more painkillers and sent me home. I was sleeping on the couch because I didn’t want to disturb my wife while I moaned and sporadically yelled out when I moved my left leg wrong.

I woke up around midnight as the effects of the pain medication wore out and I felt throbbing pain on my knee. I sat myself up as much as I could and tried to reach for the pills on the coffee table. Then another shooting pain from my knee made my body tense up. Then another one, this time painful enough to make me cry out.

This happened a couple more times before I gave up. I was tired from being in so much pain, and the fact that I haven’t slept well because of the gout the past week just absolutely drained me.

Fifteen minutes later I felt like something else was wrong. The immense gout pain was still there, but I also felt some sort of indigestion? It was different, something I haven’t experienced before.

I quickly called my wife and asked her to come. That’s when the sweating started. Beads of sweat drenched my shirt and the leather couch I was lying on. She asked if she should call 000 – emergency services. I said yes. While she was on the phone, I was trying to figure out what was going on.

Was it that evening’s Pad Thai takeaway that’s causing this? Some sort of food poisoning maybe?

Then everything darkened. It was as if someone dialed the dimmer switch all the way down. My eyes strained to focus and thoughts became muddled in my brain. The weird part was when my wife was asking me questions and I couldn’t understand. Her voice was like a cassette tape being played on a low battery Walkman.

I couldn’t see nor understand when she asked, “How many fingers am I holding up?”

When the medics came, the sweating started to subside and I was trying to manage what I was feeling with water. My blood pressure was 60 over 35.

They couldn’t carry me to the stretcher because the pain in my knee was still paramount to anything else and I had to use my crutches to get on it. When I finally I got on the ambulance, they put defibrillator pads on me. I remember asking what they were for.

They calmly said that I was having a heart attack.

No, I thought. “Seriously?” I asked. He nodded. They asked me all sorts of questions that I can no longer recall because all I was thinking was: heart attack at 36! I told myself I was going to be fine. But seriously, I’m too young to have a heart attack.

I’m going to the hospital and I’m conscious so that’s a good thing, right? Right? Please God, let me be okay.

The ambulance had to stop and meet up with a different crew who had more experience with my situation. They kept checking my ECG readings as we raced to the hospital. Along the way they poked my arm and administered dosages of stuff that I’m guessing were keeping me alive until we get to the emergency room.

When we arrived at the hospital, a group of doctors were in the scrubs ready for me. It was weird having all those people just looking at me like I was dying or something. More needles. More tubes. More wires hooked up to machines that showed that my heart was still somewhat beating.

Once my heart stabilized, they told me that they were moving me to the cardiac ward. But to do that, they had to transfer me to a wheeled bed. Every time I switched beds, I have to move my body, which means moving my knee, which means more pain.

I kept telling them to watch out for my knee because it hurts something fierce. When this whole fiasco started, I just grimaced whenever my knee was moved. Now I didn’t care and yelled out every time it happens.

I looked at my wife who came in and gave me a kiss. I told her I had a heart attack. She knew. She stayed by my side until sunrise.

The doctors came in with some of the results. It was a massive heart attack. The head doctor gave me options and I opted to get a stent (a tube, plastic or metal, inserted into a vessel or duct to keep it open) to treat the clogged arteries that caused the heart attack.

They were considering putting off the procedure until my gout had gone down a bit, because I needed to be perfectly still on a table for stent placement, but decided to do it in the afternoon. I wasn’t sure if it was just because of the severity of the heart attack that led them to this decision or if they knew that my gout wasn’t going away for quite some time.

On the table for stent placement, where I indeed struggled to stay still, I saw my heart and the dyed arteries on the monitor. They showed me where they’re going to place the stent. It was interesting to see a tube inside me opening a tiny metal balloon to open up the blocked artery.

The whole procedure took a couple of hours.

I found myself lying on a hospital bed, thinking what might have happened. It’s a big “What If” scenario that keeps me up at night until now. What if I didn’t wake up when the heart attack occurred? What if my wife didn’t hear my call? What if the paramedics came just a bit too late? What if my heart just decided to call it quits?

Throughout this ordeal in the hospital, relatives and friends came by to give support and prayed for me and my wife. Their words of hope and faith of surpassing this made the stay bearable. I was itching to go home, but I had to stay for another 48 hours. Doctors checked on my heart's condition and the gout.

I pass the time reading. I read the Bible, caught up on some comic books, and a few online articles. Some were about heart attacks and its fatality rates. Fun.

At the end of the day, I put my earphones on and just listened. Visiting time was over and my wife has gone back to our empty home. It’s been a long time since I just stopped and listened to music. I closed my eyes and let it dwell in me. I let the music simmer in my soul. I imagined as it was being written, why and whom it was written for. I left the hum and beeps of the hospital machines and ventured into the realm of heartfelt vocals, expressive strings, and the beat of the drums.

I cried that night. I lay on that bed wondering if my life would ever be the same.

It wasn’t.

Now I take around 11 pills of different sorts per day. They keep my blood pressure low, my blood thinner, and to make sure the two stents they placed will not get blocked. They also upped my dosage for the gout. The sooner my uric acid levels go down, the better. I also have with me my nitro spray, just in case I feel any pain in my chest. This apparently opens up my arteries if I have another heart attack. I haven’t used it yet, but it’s good to have handy.

My food has changed dramatically, too. I take ages to do my grocery because I have to look up all the nutrition facts on the packaging. Low salt, low sugar, low fat, and low cholesterol — sometimes I feel like I’m just eating paper.

The first two to three months were the hardest. This is the adjustment period. I also lost the most amount of weight during this time — around 13 kilograms. After that my weight loss plateaued. So I got myself a road bike and started cycling. I didn't get very far at first — only around three kilometers. But the more I cycled, the farther I got.

The greatest news I received was around six months after the heart attack. I’ve been back to see the cardiologist a few times to do more tests and during the last appointment he said that I was as good as before the heart attack.  

My EF (ejection fraction) rate was at 40 percent right after the heart attack. Now it’s close to 70, which is normal.

There are times when I look back on this ordeal and wonder if I didn’t get the heart attack, I probably would be eating the same junk day after day. I would have stayed being inactive and not exercising. Because of the heart attack, I now have a new lease on life. Like I was born again.

That my friends, is a silver lining if I ever saw one. —AT/KG, GMA News