Surviving a heart attack: No movie magic, just grit and gratitude

So, there I was, flat on my back in the emergency room with dozens of pipes, wires and needles attached to my body after suffering a major heart attack.

Let me start off by emphasising that it’s not at all like in the movies. Not even close.

For starters, it was the most painful experience of my life.

Imagine being hit with a sledgehammer dead centre in the chest. Well, it’s much worse than that. And no, my left arm was not numb. Both my arms were so sore that I was more than prepared to chew them off.

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Apart from the drips and injections, the doctors also stuffed pills down my throat faster than a kindergarten class can devour a packet of Smarties.

In the movies, it looks so easy. The doctor inevitably calls “clear”, shocks the dead patient, and repeats the process two more times before the patient sits up, alive and well, with a perfect hairstyle and make-up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the shock treatment or the make-up.

I got what felt like three lengths of barbed wire stuck up my arteries starting in my groin and going all the way to my heart.

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They don’t show you that angiogram trick in the movies.

But I must say, that’s the trick that saved my life, and I am eternally grateful. There is one other movie move I missed out on: the bright white light.

Apparently when people have a near-death experience, Hollywood believes that they see this inviting, soft, beautiful white light accompanied by soothing piano music.

Yeah, right.

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I saw the white light. Lots of them, actually. They are all over the hospital, shining down from the ceiling. Bright LEDs that use hardly any electricity but can give the sun a run for his money.

The reason you can’t miss them is that, flat on your back, you are staring up at them all the time.

As for the music, no harp was heard. Only a cacophony of beeps and peeps and blips and bells and alarms – each reporting some body function or tempo of medicines being pumped into the veins.

But at the end of the day, that cacophony was beyond beautiful, because that’s what being alive really sounds like.

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