It is always a choice

While in the e m ergency r o om, my head was still spinning and I felt as though I was falling into a very deep sleep. The kind of sleep where the eyes are super heavy and wouldn’t open even if you tried desperately. I can only smell how sterile the hospital was. I recall the hurried movements of the people around me. I remember hearing the voices of nurses and probably resident doctors quietly saying “stroke.”

I remembered being wheeled into a room where the nursing aides were saying CT Scan.

In the middle of my “deep” slumber, my office mates came to see me. Despite my having dozed off for how long I don’t know, I was conscious and asked them to transfer me to a hospital that I was comfortable with. Not just because I was worried about my hospital expenses, but because I was comfortable in a particular public hospital where most of the doctors were my friends and the nurses were my students. In short, I trusted that public hospital and its medical practitioners to make me well.

My best friend coordinated my release from the present hospital, the ambulance that would transport me, and the acceptance to the hospital of my choice.

In transit, I had a lot of things running in my mind. I had meetings to attend. My newspaper needed final editing. I had to be up and about for Joey’s first day at school. How will I be like after the stroke? I had to get better because I needed to be alive for my son who is still in elementary school. What will happen to him should I die?

During that difficult time, I only had my fifth grader taking care of me in the hospital. Though ing down, with very little to no exercise, doubles the risk of CVDs. According to the World Health

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Organization (WHO), 60 to 85 percent of people in the world from both developed and devel - oping countries lead sedentary lifestyles, making it one of the more serious yet insufficiently addressed public health problems of our time. Physical inactivity, along with increasing tobacco use and poor diet and nutrition, are increasingly becoming part of today’s lifestyle leading to the rapid rise of CVDs, diabetes, or obesity, the WHO warned.

As part of the Unblocked movement, Novartis associates across Asia-Pacific, Middle e a st & Africa (APMA) r e gion are taking on the Unblocked APMA Challenge. Associates of Novartis Healthcare Philippines will join their APMA colleagues in facing this friendly team-based virtual activity challenge that starts at midnight on February 20, 2023 and ends four weeks later at a minute before midnight on March 20, 2023.

“Through the Unblocked APMA Challenge, we aim to link our associates to unblocked, increased social connection and commitment to intentional physical activity. This will help our associates lower their risk for CVDs and encourage them to live a healthy, active lifestyle,” said Christine Fajardo, cines with prescription, the same discount in restaurants, hotels, and diagnostic clinics. my friends visited every now and then, it was Joey who spoke with my doctors, bought me my medicine in cases when the hospital ran out of stock, briefed the visitors of my condition, and handled our finances. He was only 11 years old then.

Communications & e n gagement Head, Novartis Healthcare Philippines, Inc.

Participants in the challenge exercise on their own, but not alone. They form teams via the social fitness app GoJoe. Doing activities generates solo and team points, weighted by activity type to level the playing field. Whoever gets the most-points, wins. But it’s not just about who tops the leaderboards—it is all about teamwork and encouraging each other to get active. e ve ry point counts. There will be a range of awards and incentive points available for those who engage.

The Unblocked APMA Challenge doesn’t count steps like many other challenges. Instead, it’s all about planned or set activities—from walks, to runs, to cycles, to gym sessions, to yoga, to martial arts and so on. Participants can engage in 40 different sports which are all weighted to level the playing field. Walking is included but the challenge recognizes a planned walk measured in kilometers rather than everyday steps.

Eureka!

In August 2022 I felt the familiar rubberized sticker feeling on my chest. This was a week before my son, Joey, started his 3rd year e c onomics course in College.

A week before that though, I noticed that I was having fecal incontinence. I could not control my poop. When I have the urge to poop, it comes out even before the bathroom, soiling all my underpants.

True enough, I had a stroke. My speech slurred. The right side of my mouth was drooping. I could not lift my right arm. And I couldn’t move my fingers. Things dropped when I tried to hold them with my right hand.

My son moved my fingers one by one and taught me to move them by myself. Back then, a small movement from my pinky was reason enough to celebrate and thank God. Imagine how thankful we were when I moved all my fingers all together!

Walking was another thing. I was limping. In order to walk, I had to drag my right leg and foot. I used a quad cane which helped me regain a little of my walking stride.

Before I was discharged from the hospital, my attending doc - tor advised me to go on a low-salt, low-fat and low-carb diet. That I should stop smoking altogether.

That I must take my medicines religiously. That I must take fluids even if I am not thirsty. He said that my not having taken water even when I was not thirsty was a contributory factor to the stroke. I didn’t feel thirsty during that time because Typhoon Ondoy was ravaging Metro Manila. The weather was cold and damp, thirst was something that can easily be forgotten.

Though I was embarrassed by my limping and dragging movement, I went back to work a month after and resumed my daily grind. I was not normal because of the limp and slurred speech. So I applied to teach College so I could exert effort in speaking and practicing my speech.

That went on for years. Then I applied for my Person With Disability (PWD) card. Having the PWD card is not fun, nor is it a license to bully other people. It has its perks though. I get an automatic 20 percent discount on my medi -

And I felt a bloated stomach again. I once again felt chest pains that I tried to relieve with eucalyptus oil massages on the chest, paracetamol, and drinking a lot of water.

After my son left for his first day of face-to-face classes at school, I asked our house help if she could bring me to the same hospital that got me out ok during my stroke.

At the e m ergency r o om, I was triaged. I was also given my swab test on both my nostrils. An e C G machine was strapped to me. And a medical technologist took several vacutainers of my blood sample.

Then a doctor in full PP e uniform replete with a breathing apparatus and oxygen tank approached my er bed. He said that I tested Covid-19 positive. Together with that I had a heart attack. He added that I was brought to the hospital in time.

Joey arrived from school as a medical aide wheeled me into an Isolation r o om. Nobody could go inside the room nor could I go out. Joey could only look at my room from afar. The room had no windows.

After hours in the Isolation r o om and two bottles of Intrave nous dextrose attached to me, I was taken to the hospital’s Isolation ICU. The room was big and strikingly white with several hospital beds, oxygen tanks, defibrillators and heart blood pressure monitors.

The immaculate white expanse of the room, the smell of hospital disinfectant and the sound of continuous “beep, beep, beep” from the heart monitors sent shivers down my spine. It was creepy and scary at the same time as all the nurses were clad in protective uniforms because the Covid-19 Pandemic was still the order of the day.

During my first few days, I had an oxygen mask on. Periodically day after day they injected me with an anticoagulant on different areas of my tummy so that my blood unhinged and not cause a stroke (I looked like a leopard when I finally looked at that area as I easily get hematoma). My medications consisted of antibiotics for Covid-19, medication to regulate blood pressure, blood sugar and other medicines for whatever else they were correcting.

I must have had close to 80 needle pricks and blood extractions. One procedure that I really monitored was the Cardiac Panel Test to check the extent of the heart attack and my heart function.

Two weeks after the confinement, I had my 2-d e c ho. It showed that my heart function was down to 60 percent from 77 percent back in 2019.

It was the saddest of all my hospital confinements.

I could only look at my son and my visitors from the glass window outside the ICU nurses’ window while talking with them on the mobile phone. The nurses received the food they brought for me. I was not allowed to stand up to go to the bathroom because they said I had a heart attack. Any unnecessary movement might strain my heart. So I had to pee and excrete feces on my adult diaper. It was gross.

The worst part was when the patient on the hospital bed beside me died of Covid! That was the e ur eka moment for me! That I could die any time and never to see my son again. I stayed at the ICU Isolation for 10 days. Again, the attending doctor said the usual things that I must obey. Low-salt, low-fat diet. Stop smoking. No stress.

This time despite my stubbornness, I obeyed him. I went on the prescribed diet (though I slipped back again ever so often) and left the job that caused my stress. Most importantly, I stopped smoking completely. I have been “nicotine sober” for the last six months. The best part? I don’t crave for cigarettes anymore.

And over and above all these experiences, two things were constant. The love of my son for his mom. And God’s love and mercy for a stubborn and hard headed person like me.

After all these years—two heart attacks, one stroke and one Covid infection, I learned firsthand that life is a precious gift. I can either treasure and nourish it or throw it in the trash bin. My choice.

BusinessMirror would like to thank Helen for trusting us with her story about her health as well as her emotional struggles. This, according to Helen, is the first time that she is publicly sharing her story and she hopes that this will help inspire those who are in similar situations. As she states, she made a choice to break away from her bad habits and chose to live a healthier life.