I was being discharged from Alam Hospital and Research Centre in Ranchi after a week-long stay there. My wife Jyoti was busy entertaining well-wishers who had come to see me. And although I had been advised by doctors to avoid anything that would stress me, there was a tumult rising in my head regarding what had gone wrong that fateful night.

I had lost all sensation that ungodly night a week earlier. My son Saurabh found me unconscious in the room with no pulse, a fading heartbeat and my body stiff as a board. I was rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors said I had suffered a heart attack.

The medical team resuscitated my heart using CPR and took me in for angiography. The verdict: one of my arteries was completely blocked and a second artery was more than 70 per cent blocked. The doctors introduced stents into my blocked arteries, in two separate procedures, and now I was ready to go home.

Try as I did, I couldn’t figure it out. What could have caused such a deadly attack? I exercised every morning without fail; I cycled four to five days a week; practised yoga; and avoided oily and spicy foods. I never ate street food. What could have gone so horribly wrong?

The doctor who treated me was astonished to find that I was neither diabetic nor did I have abnormal blood pressure. He put it down to the cigarette smoking. With the help of the doctor, I also realised that my family history (my mother had undergone bypass surgery) and neglecting an annual health check-up had contributed to my heart attack.

Suddenly, the door opened and my wife entered with a plate full of fruits. “Doctor suggests that you eat something every two hours,” she said, with a smile. She also asked if I was stressing myself again.

“No, I am not stressing myself but have realised where I went wrong,” I replied. I leaned against the divan, took a piece of apple and, in a sombre voice, I vowed, “I will not repeat those mistakes.”

—Binay Kumar Pathak, Ranchi

Featured in Harmony — Celebrate Age Magazine
May 2018