Lā ʾilāha ʾillā l-Lāh, Muḥammadur rasūlu l-Lāh (I bear witness that there is no God but God and Muhammad is His Messenger) – I was slowly reciting the statement of faith as I was being transported on a stretcher from the waiting room to the operation theater of South Lake Hospital, New Market Ontario, on a cold winter morning in Canada.
It was December 16, 2011 and the time was 8am. Earlier in the waiting room, my wife and I performed our morning prayer together. I asked for forgiveness for past sins and sought the Almighty’s mercy. I was calm and content after the prayer and patiently waited for the nurse to take me to the operation theatre.
The operation was on the 5th floor. As I approached the operating room, I was greeted by the anesthetist. I took a quick glance around the room which was brightly lit and equipped with numerous machines. The anesthetist started to prepare me for intravenous and I knew that within the next few seconds, I would succumb to a deep slumber from which I might never awake. I started to recite the profession of faith once more, and then almost instantly, was gone.
I came to my senses in a large room, quiet and cold, with only a few dim lights. The veil of darkness lifted, as I ever so slowly opened my eyes. I remember, with a clarity resembling daylight, that I was reciting the very same statement of faith – the shahadah.
I tried to look around and a very young nurse was walking around the room. She whispered politely, “you woke up.”
“So, I am alive” – the reassuring thought flashed through my mind, “this is the same old world.”
I wanted to talk but was unable as there was a breathing tube down my throat. The nurse comforted me, “we shall now remove the tube and will give you some ice to swallow to relieve the pain in your throat.”
Next, I was helped to sit up on the bed with the assistance of two nurses and was asked to cough deeply to clear my lungs from accumulated fluids.
This was very important – I remember being told at my pre-operation clinic session. The two nurses helped me step down from my bed, after which I moved around the room for a while. I still did not know how long I was unconscious in total after the surgery.
As my mind raced to tie all the events of the past few weeks together, I noticed that my wife and my eldest brother-in-law were entering the room accompanied by the nurse. I asked her gently about the time and day. She told me it was Saturday afternoon, approximately 3:30 pm. I did a quick calculation; it was almost 36 hours that I had been unconscious.
My wife informed me that I had undergone four by-passes and one cleaning; that’s what Dr Moon, my surgeon, told me would be performed during our pre-surgery consultation meeting. It all worked out, and I was relieved.
My wife later invited other visitors to come one by one to see me. Each spent a few moments with me, during which I inquired about their well being and requested their prayers for my speedy recovery. They all left in the evening by 8–9pm.
The nurse’s shift had been changed, and a new nurse took over for the night. It was time for me to fall asleep again. But I would not sleep so easily now – I would stay awake for extended periods of time late into the night, for many following nights.
For now I would be thinking about the chronology of the events that happened so fast during the last few weeks. “Am I dreaming,” I asked myself. As I started to remember all that had happened in the weeks leading to this by-pass surgery, I realised how fortunate I was.
I appreciated that and thought it is my duty to let others know about the hope imbibed in such experiences – that we could always depend on Allah’s mercy even though we commit so many sins in our everyday lives.
On November 21, 2011, I had an angiogram; it felt like that was yesterday. The test confirmed that I had five serious coronary blockages of my heart. I was stunned by the results. It took me quite some time to accept the truth and grasp the gravity of the situation. Why had such a fate confronted me?
Those who knew me for many years were quite surprised as well and scared too. I was a disciplined man throughout my life – always following a regulated lifestyle with moderation in everything: no cholesterol and no junk food, I was involved in physical activities such as walking and yoga everyday.
As far as I knew, there was no family history of heart diseases. So what had gone wrong? I was asking myself and frantically looking for an answer. Gradually, things settled down and I started to think rationally. I knew from my earlier tests that my heart condition was fine, very close to normal.
The heart condition is expressed by a fraction, which is medically known as the ejection fraction or EF. Ejection fraction shows the pumping capacity of heart, in other words the muscle power of heart. For a normal heart, it is 60-70%. My EF was 58%. So, there was no damage done so far, even with 90% blockages. But in that moment, everything became clear as the bigger picture manifested before my eyes: “Oh my God, how close was I to a major disaster!”
I started visualising the worst case scenarios. Had I not gone for the test as I did not have any symptom, which normally is related to heart diseases such as chest pain, shortness of breath, or high blood cholesterol, it would have been just a matter of time.
The time bomb could have exploded when I was driving to work or returning home or driving my family somewhere. It was a sheer blessing of the Merciful who decided the outcome of my situation in a way of pure love and gentleness.
From that day on, I asked Allah’s forgiveness after each prayer for my weakness in faith. Miraculously, I got the surgeon’s appointment within two days. My surgeon Dr Moon, a very well experienced heart doctor, explained all the pros and cons of heart by-pass surgery. I asked him for some details of the procedure that he would be performing – whether he was going to separate my heart from the rest of the body or if he was going to stop it while he would be working on it.
In both cases, I would be put on a heart-lung machine throughout the duration of the procedure. Dr Moon told me that he preferred the second option. I asked him what the failure rate of the procedure was – he took a pause, and replied 2-3%. Then he added, “we put it the other way e.g. success rate was 97-98%.” I gave him a fragile smile and said very slowly that if I was within that 3%, it would be 100% for me.
He asked me when I preferred to undergo the surgery. I was desperate and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. So I requested the earliest date possible. However, a number of factors would decide the surgery date. In the next few days, I went through a number of pathological tests and information sessions.
The tests ranged from all types of blood work to ultrasounds of the veins in my legs which would be required during the surgery. The information session was to prepare me psychologically by showing a video of an actual heart surgery, and talking with other people who had gone through bypass surgery before. My wife and I attended the day-long schedule and went back to our home in Waterloo with new hope.
I was granted medical leave from my job and was left to patiently wait for a surgery date.
It was possibly early morning of December 7 when I got a phone call from the hospital that my surgery date was fixed and it would be done during the next week. I thanked Allah for the reassuring news. At last, my days of uncertainty were coming to an end and I didn’t have to be under suffocating stress anymore.
I called my wife at her work place and let her know that I was coming to meet her and spend some time with her. I was familiar with all her coworkers over the last 10-12 years. So, all of them were very shocked when they came to know of my diagnosis. Obviously, they were very sympathetic to us and tried to be very assuring in our difficult time.
At my wife’s work place, I was greeted by her colleagues. Everybody was anxious. One told me about her father’s by-pass surgery and how he was doing after that. I felt encouraged by her story and asked a few questions.
Then I saw the assistant manager. She hugged me and then all of a sudden, started telling me how her father had an heart attack on a wintery day while shovelling snow. Her father was a Royal Mounted Police officer, and a very active and outgoing professional. He was around fifty when it happened. His heart stopped as he lay unconscious on the snow.
The family called for emergency medical assistance. Soon after their arrival, the paramedics were able to restart his heart and took him to the hospital. Fortunately he survived and after a long recovery period, came back to work only to find that his life had been changed totally. He was given a desk job and was to become very depressed.
Ultimately, he took voluntary retirement and confined himself at home. He started drinking a lot and 10 years later had a second heart attack which ended his life. I was stunned hearing this story. I didn’t want such a fate – one of emptiness and the loss of hope. I was silently staring at Cindy, the assistant manager, with an empty look.
Day by day and night by night, I was frantically reaching out for Allah’s mercy, for strength and to remain vigilant even in the face of Cindy’s anecdote. I do not remember how long I was standing there, when I felt my blackberry cell phone vibrating.
The vibration brought me back to the reality. I reached out my phone and saw a message waiting in my mailbox. It was from a very young gentleman who joined my office just a month before I left on medical leave.
His name was Bruno and I had not had a good chance to get to know him before I went on leave. So I was a little surprised when I began to read the email. Bruno, a committed Catholic, was writing to assure me that everything would be alright with my surgery, that God was just taking my test. He cited a number of verses from the Quran which he learned in his world religion class – where Allah (SWT) said for every disease, there is a cure and that humans are encouraged to seek treatments for their ills.
As I read the email, I felt a cold shiver as if I had been struck by a thunderbolt. Like all practicing Muslims, these verses are familiar to me. But never before were they so meaningful to me.
My whole consciousness was engulfed with a strange feeling which I had felt only twice before in my life – long ago when I was a just a kid; two strange dreams occurred in my boyhood, one just before my father’s death and the other just after his passing. “Is it a message?” I asked myself perplexed. What a strange coincidence! I felt a cold rush through my body making me numb.
Suddenly, I felt that I was not afraid anymore. I felt that I had been assured by someone. My eyes were getting wet – just at that moment I saw my wife coming towards me.
As she approached, I told her cheerfully that the date of my surgery was possibly on December 13. However, this was changed twice and my surgery was actually held on December 16, 2011.
Just one week later I was released from the hospital. While staying there, my physiotherapist taught me aerobic exercises to keep my leg and chest muscles active without harming the healing process of the chest bones which were cut to open my chest cavity, along with a metre-long incision in my left leg. Alhamdulillah, I became quite strong within six weeks and by the ninth week, I was given full permission to drive long distances; I rejoined my office after three months.
Looking back, I remember that the second week after surgery was possibly the worst time of my life so far. Even now, I do not want to remember the pain and agony I was going through every minute of those days, even though I was on heavy sedatives.
This was because the body was trying to regain control over its activities as my brain had not been conscious for 36 hours. There was a lack of coordination among different functions within the body and hence the suffering.
During my first follow up, my surgeon Dr Moon was very happy to see my progress. I was referred to a cardiac rehabilitation centre to learn different exercises and move forward. The cardiac rehab is probably the most important step that people who have undergone cardiac intervention should pursue in order to stay healthy and prevent any further damage to their heart.
Unfortunately, we are quite ignorant on cardiac rehabilitation activities in our country. There is no organised knowledge-based programme in this area. As such, many patients having a successful by-pass surgery cannot achieve a complete recovery afterwards and face various complications.
The cardiac rehabilitation programme is a broad topic and I hope to explain it in more detail in future.
In the meantime, I must mention that my recovery has continued satisfactorily. Allah blessed my wife and I with the opportunity to perform Hajj and visit our beloved Prophet’s grave in Medina. Hajj is physically very demanding, and I think that my rigorous cardiac rehabilitation routine made it easy for me.
My thanks to all those who will be reading this account of my journey, please remember me in your prayers. May the Merciful keep you safe and protect you from all dangers. Ameen.
