FEAR OF HEART ATTACK

This blog spot has had to wait for two weeks while I spent my time in the Intensive Care Unit of the Port Moresby Hospital with a suspected heart attack. It was the nightmare of a lifetime.

I was given full time attention by an army of doctors and nurses who were totally helpful and determined to get at the bottom of the illness that attacked me.

As a person involved with explaining HIV/AIDS, I was amazed through the haze of illness and fear, to note the similarity with HIV infection in the impact on the physical body. This mysterious illness like HIV/AIDS had destroyed the water-salt balance.

My treatment was simple. It meant that my chest was constantly under careful watch by X-ray, electro-cardiograph sounding, blood pressure, temperature. My chart was a kilometer long within a week.

I was put on a drip of water. One packet empty and the next packet was installed above me. I was on water drip for the whole time there. Blood was taken and this was horrible and painful when the nurse could not find the artery.

I was strung up by tubes and wires to the extent that I could not leave the bed. Toilet facilities were available at a call to a nurse.

There was massive pain in my chest starting with the left lung and spread to my heart. The doctors were investigating a number of possibilities. I was told that heart attacks are deceptive.

Looking back now, I can see that the treatment was basically to restore the water-salt balance, stop infection in heart and lungs , restore the left lung to its proper size with water to the kidneys and oxygen to the tissues.

My main shame was that I had been promoting Positive Living for a decade for people living with HIV/AIDS.

I had drunk mainly clean water, eaten fresh, ripe fruit and vegetables, walked up to 15 km a day, did not smoke or drink, worked daily and did my best to be a Papua New Guinea role model. Here I was having a heart attack.

Many friends visited my bed, more than ever I would dream of. They all told me that I have been living at too fierce a pace. I was told that the Positive Living seeds have struck root. I need only to spend time with God and at peace. Sounds a great idea.

But on the last day, the final results came in. I did not have a heart attack after all. It was an infected left lung that spread out to infect the heart. Was it caused by a lack of hygiene? I did have an infected tooth. Mouth hygiene is a key matter for us all. Or was it just an opportunistic infection?

I pay tribute to the professionalism and kindness of the doctors and nurses. They had to put up with a lot. I am not used to being dependent on people for all my basic functions. I could at times be a pain in the you-know-where. It was more in the chest this time.

My nutrition was looked by hospital and family. The special contribution of the hospital throughout is the provision of brown rice not white rice. Brown rice contains thiamine that strengthens the brain.

I was reminded of the book given by a friend with the title of Your Body is not Sick but Thirsty. The doctors did not completely accept that as witnessed by the regime of antibiotics given to me.

But apart from that, the treatment was basically to give my body an extended drink of water. Dehydration is the hand-maiden of dementia.

I suffered dementia on days 2-3. The ceiling had turned like the wall of pharoah’s tomb with strange messages I could not read. There was a crocodile as part of the ceiling reaching forward. People with dementia report danger to themselves. Such dementia may last only as long as the physiological stress remains.