to deteriorate and was eventually wheeled into the Coronary Care High Dependency Unit. It had a very different feel about it - all white, very high ceilings, voices echoing. The beds in this unit had very wide spaces between them to accommodate the rescue teams of doctors and nurses. My team came to my rescue at about 5pm. I had sunk so low, the pain in my chest was breaking through the drugs they had given me and I could no longer talk. The only thought in my head was to keep breathing. Breathe in and breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. I figured if I could just keep breathing, I wouldn’t die. The doctors and nurses were quickly putting needles and lines into both of my arms and each hand. They were all moving very quickly around me and speaking in hushed voices. I managed to whisper to one of the nurses as she crouched at my bedside and held my hand with great pity in her eyes. She said they were calling my husband to come back - he’d gone home to be with the children for tea. I asked if I was going to die now, and she swallowed hard before saying, ‘Not now” - but she gave her colleague a look. She was a lovely gentle nurse but no good at telling lies.
The team managed to stabilize me enough to move me to another hospital, where, they said, I would get fixed up. They had arranged for me to have an angiogram, expecting to find a blockage somewhere in my heart that was causing the problem.
An angiogram involves inserting a tube, via a vein in your groin, into the heart. Dye is pumped through the tube and an x-ray shows the blood and oxygen flow and any blockage. If there is a blockage, it can often be cleared by fitting a stent or by performing a bypass.
At this point, I was passing in and out of consciousness. I was aware that I was just hanging on, and wasn’t at all sure how much longer I would manage. We arrived at the new hospital, and the surgeon, who had been dragged out of bed, told me all the risks associated with an angiogram and the mortality rate. Even in my perilous state, I could do the maths - and thought there were things I’d much rather have been doing.
The Cath Lab, where they were going to perform the procedure, was very cold and I had to lie on an even colder table to have the angiogram. By this point I was relatively relaxed, partly due to the drugs I had been given but also partly because of what was happening to my body. I was starting to shut down. I felt myself let go a couple of times and it frightened me… but it was not unpleasant. It would have been very easy just to drift off. I knew my situation was very bad but the thing that surprised me was how calm I was by then.
The surgeon started his procedure, putting a small incision in my groin. I felt the blood trickle over my leg. He then fed the line up into my heart to pump the dye in and x-ray the results. I felt very close to the edge, but I was still quietly determined just to keep breathing. Yet I almost gave up when I heard the surgeon start to swear under his breath. I looked at his face and saw an expression of shock and disbelief and then panic and then nothing. It was when he started to swear that I think I began to understand just how dire my situation was.
Even so, I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. The surgeon took off his gloves, then left the room with his shoulders drooped. The nurses and assistants followed quietly as if embarrassed - I was all alone. Everyone really had gone. Upped and left. Gone. I was alone. Completely and utterly alone in this dreadful room on this cold table. I thought for a moment that I was dead and this was what it was like.
I stopped forcing my breath and let my natural breath take over. Each breath was so shallow and light but it was all I could hear in the room. I couldn’t fill my lungs. Was I still alive? I could drift off really easily and when I did the pain in my chest went away. I did it a couple of times to see what it was like. It was fine. Just fine. I would then pull myself back and the hurting returned, but it had turned into a ‘good’ pain because it proved that I was still alive. I really needed that confirmation. And I really needed to feel the pain.
After what seemed like a couple of hours, but which was probably only a couple of minutes, Dogan, my husband, walked into the room. He was sobbing. He said that he loved me. The doctors had told him that I had suffered another massive heart attack; that my heart had sustained a shocking amount of damage, which could not be repaired; and that I was going to die. So as he walked into the lab, he was coming to say goodbye.
I would love to be able to write that I told him how much I loved him and we held each other tight. That didn’t happen. Since I had just discovered that I was still alive, and I’d allowed myself to think for a second about my little ones at home, I was filled with an all-consuming need and desire and passion not to let myself die. I can’t put into words how strong this feeling was. It was this surge of emotion that literally saved my life. It must have been all about the people that I love. It was instinctive and I decided there and then that I would never, ever give up breathing.
I had so much to live for.
What had actually happened to my heart was something so rare that none of the cardiologists that I saw subsequently had ever encountered it before. In fact, it was the reason the surgeon had become so defeated and left me in the lab. My main left artery, the one inside the heart that feeds the heart muscle blood and oxygen, had literally unravelled and fallen apart. The condition is called ‘spontaneous coronary artery dissection’, and is usually diagnosed post-mortem. My artery just simply fell apart, which meant that the blood coming into the heart, instead of being pumped straight out to feed my body, was actually just leaking away. My heart was literally bleeding and being starved of the blood and oxygen that it needed to function, and my body and vital organs were also being deprived. I had just enough output, or blood trickling through, to keep me alive. Just.
At this point, I was wired up to monitors and machines and felt overwhelmed and in a complete state of shock. Nobody can really explain why I survived that night. According to all the medical books, I shouldn’t have. My condition is incredibly rare, with only 200 or so recorded cases worldwide and about 30 survivors - ever! However, I was also fit, a healthy eater and a non-smoker, so this all worked in my favour. I am also a great believer in fate, and with three babies at home I had the most precious of reasons to keep breathing.
I could tell that the doctors were struggling the next day to say something positive to me. But they couldn’t. They believed that although I had survived the heart attacks, my chances of pulling through the next 24 hours were very slim. They were kind and gentle but, in this instance, they couldn’t perform miracles.
eating for health
Well, as you have probably gathered, having survived the un-survivable, my future health became so very important to me. I realized that I was the only person who could control how long I was to be around. Food and exercise became my saviour - and this book is my eating plan.
Here, you will find the recipes I devised when my prognosis was poor and I knew I had to take control of everything I ate in order to give myself the best possible chance of survival. At the same time I had three hungry cherubs at home and I was determined that they should grow up with a great relationship with food, as I had. I certainly didn’t want them to grow up thinking that a diet of mung beans and spinach was normal! So, scattered through my recipes you will find some ingredients often considered ‘unhealthy’. I’d like to take the opportunity to address each of these so that you fully understand what the facts are.
The first point to make is that ‘good food’ and ‘bad food’ is an old message steeped in myth and half-truth. I believe that many people have picked up unhelpful pieces of advice that they now hang on to, but actually these so-called ‘facts’ are making it far more difficult for them to enjoy a healthy diet for life. I know that the key to eating well is balancing nourishment with enjoyment; moderation is essential and it is possible to eat for health and taste in equal measure. I hope that after reading my book you’ll find it very easy to make good food choices and at the same
