Heart Attack!

It pains me to remember those days that it has taken me this long to write down my struggle to survive when I suffered a near fatal heart attack on June 15, 2002. This is being written in grateful gratitude to my loving wife and children who sat with me in sickness and comforted me in moments of depression and nursed me back to good health.

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Heart Attack!

The stomach ache woke me up. It was 5:30 in the morning of my 67th birthday, also our wedding anniversary. The pain in my stomach increased in intensity and frequency and my shoulders and arms felt numbed. Heart attack? Unlikely, I told myself. But it was really a heart attack. The result of the angiogram (an X-ray photograph of a blood vessel) confirmed this reality.

Doctors operated on me early Monday morning. I slept through the operation until the next day, Tuesday while doctors struggled to keep me alive.

The kind voice of a Filipino male nurse woke me up on Wednesday, assuring me that skilled doctors performed the operation successfully. He then asked me to move my fingers and legs which I did. I turned my head sideward to thank the white-clad doctor standing beside my bed but there was nobody there. Was I hallucinating?

My first struggle at recovery consisted of breathing exercises for my lungs at the hospital (the heart-lung machine takes over during operation) and I regretted having smoked many years ago. Two decades have passed since I stopped smoking but the damage to my lungs is still evident.

Recovery was painful and just as difficult.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia is the enlargement of prostate gland, obstructing the flow of urine. I am afflicted with this condition which is common to men 50 years old and above. Moreover, my prostate specific antigen (PSA) level was elevating with every test. Serum levels are elevated in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer and are used as a screening test for prostate cancer. And, as a result of high blood pressure, one of my kidneys was damaged while the performance of the other was way below the standard for my age. The prospect of renal failure was depressing.

As can be expected, doctors gave me a long “hit” list of food: most especially salt, meat, organ meat and pork. The “starvation” diet and daily handful of medicines resulted in a steady weight decline, from 168 lbs. going into the operation, to a shadow of myself at 139 lbs.

Doctors will always recommend, as mine did, nutritious food instead of vitamins. By and large, they don’t believe in food supplements either. Just eat the right food, they tell their patients. That’s easier said than done. As insurance against gaps in my diet (dietary imbalance), I decided to take daily multivitamin-multimineral supplement Relìv’s FibRestore, Classic, and Innergize! instead of vitamin pills which I gave away.

When I checked in for consultation two months later, the desk attendant, examining the laboratory results, exclaimed: “Who said that kidney deterioration is irreversible?” For indeed my kidney conditions have stabilized and improved in performance even as I gained the much needed weight.

Successive laboratory tests showed a declining PSA level as well. With an improving bladder extraction (urinating), the doctor discontinued prescribing one (of two) medicine.

Since late 2002 I got sick of flu only once when I run out of Relìv. The only other time was when I felt dizzy due to low blood pressure. My cardiologist promptly stopped some medicines and reduced the dosage and frequency of others.

Here is what I learned from my ordeal.

We all know that living on fat, salt and empty calories can have a range of nasty consequences, from obesity and impotence to hypertension and heart disease. People in primitive settings experience no change in blood pressure even as they age, and the reason is fairly simple: they don’t eat processed food. Their traditional diet is rice, a little meat and a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. This is the diet I am following, sans the red meat and pork. And, instead of vitamin pills, I take Relìv.

What makes processed food so harmful? Salt is the key suspect. Salt is now showered on foods at every state of processing and preparation. Read the “sodium” content on the labels of processed foods to know what I mean. As a result, most of us now consume more salt than our nutritional needs. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), more than 75% of consumed salt in the US diet comes from processed foods.

Those having stage I hypertension, defined by AHA as systolic BP of 140 to 159 mm Hg or diastolic BP of 90 to 99 mm Hg, are at risk and dietary changes are a useful first step before starting drug therapy. I was unaware that I had stage I hypertension.

AHA recommends reducing salt intake to about 1.5 g/day to effectively lower BP in older people and in those with hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease and “[e]ating 8 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables daily to increase potassium intake… Although recommended potassium intake is 4.7 g/day, this amount should be reduced for patients with impaired renal function or severe congestive heart failure.”

Another harmful food is trans fats.

Trans fats are harmful to the heart because they boost bad blood cholesterol and depress the good kind. They’re found naturally in meat and dairy products like beef and milk, but people get much of their trans fats from processed foods like chips and cookies. Restaurant fare, especially things like fries and fatty desserts are often rich in trans fats.

Our modern diet causes enormous problems for our health. But taking good care of ourselves is not just a health luxury. It’s an absolute necessity if we don’t want to be held hostage by pharmaceutical drugs, blood checkups and hospital stays. Not doing this only takes away more and more of our energies, our freedoms – even our lives.

I wish relief for ailments is as simple as just taking Relìv since many ailments are caused by nutritional deficiency. I survived a seven arterial heart bypass, failing kidneys, deteriorating prostate condition and falling weight by following a healthy and active lifestyle. That is the key to my rehabilitation and the message I wish to convey. I am a living proof that it works.

The solution to our ailments is to get back into our natural state of vibrant health by “cleansing” ourselves from the inside, allowing our body to rest and heal itself. Think about it: For every disease, our immune system is triggered and it immediately starts fighting it. Our body can restore every wound, diseased organ or damaged cell that it needs to – but it cannot do that if we keep polluting it.

Today, I live from day to day. Every day I go down on my knees to ask God to give me another day. He has, for the last four years, given me a “second life.”