RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Heart at­tack sur­vivor Shaun Manocha is us­ing his new lease on life to bring aware­ness about the dan­gers of heart dis­ease.

At the age of 40, Manocha sur­vived two heart surg­eries all done with­in nine months. 

Now, the fa­ther of two us­es the scars on his chests as a grim re­minder of how he al­most lost every­thing.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Manocha said he start­ed smok­ing at the age of 18, un­aware that smok­ing was nar­row­ing his ar­ter­ies. His grand­par­ents, un­cles and his fa­ther Dipin­der Manocha had all suf­fered from heart dis­ease at a young age, but Manocha be­lieved be­cause he was ath­let­ic and played crick­et and foot­ball reg­u­lar­ly, he was not in harm’s way.

He loved eat­ing steak, lob­ster, dou­bles and oth­er fried foods. He smoked and played sports to de-stress. 

Be­ing the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Caribbean Safe­ty Prod­ucts Lim­it­ed, Manocha’s life was de­mand­ing and fast-paced. His en­joyed plan­ning fam­i­ly va­ca­tions and as­sist­ing var­i­ous chil­dren char­i­ties.

In Au­gust 2019, while on a fam­i­ly va­ca­tion in Mi­a­mi, Manocha be­gan get­ting ex­cru­ci­at­ing chest pains. He was rushed to the Emer­gency Room of the Aven­tu­ra Hos­pi­tal and Med­ical Cen­tre. There they dis­cov­ered that his left artery was to­tal­ly blocked and he need­ed emer­gency surgery.

A stain­less steel stent was placed to widen the artery and two days lat­er, he had an­oth­er surgery again to clear two more ar­ter­ies. 

“ In all, they placed stents in three of my ar­ter­ies. Af­ter two months I was giv­en clear­ance to fly back home. I start­ed to eat right and ex­er­cise. I stopped smok­ing. I be­lieved I was on my way to re­cov­ery,” Manocha re­called.

How­ev­er, nine months lat­er, he again be­gan de­vel­op­ing ex­cru­ci­at­ing chest and jaw pains. It was in June 2020 and T&T was fac­ing the COVID-19 lock­down.

“I went to my lo­cal car­di­ol­o­gist at Caribbean Heart Care. They did an ur­gent an­giogram and found that the three stents were blocked up again.”

Manocha said he was di­ag­nosed with in-stent resteno­sis which af­fects on­ly two per cent of pa­tients with stent im­plants,” Manocha said.

The block­age was 90 per cent and once again Manocha went un­der the knife.

“I had to do ur­gent open-heart triple by­pass surgery. Many of my friends felt I should have re­turned to Mi­a­mi but I didn’t. My surgery was done right here at Caribbean Heart Care and I was im­pressed by their ser­vice and my re­cov­ery un­der their care,” Manocha said.

Now, sev­en months lat­er, Manocha wants T&T to know that it was pos­si­ble to get ex­cep­tion­al and ef­fi­cient open heart surgery lo­cal­ly.

“My heart at­tacks could have been fa­tal but it was not. I be­lieve I was giv­en a new lease on life which I am us­ing to ed­u­cate p[eo­ple about the im­por­tance of safe­guard­ing their health,” Manocha said.

He said enough is not be­ing done to ed­u­cate young peo­ple about the dan­gers of smok­ing.

Hav­ing smoked for 20 years, Manocha said he re­gret­ted hav­ing a vice which im­pact­ed neg­a­tive­ly on his health.

Manocha said he has been in­vit­ed to speak at sev­er­al com­pa­nies ed­u­cat­ing work­ers about han­dling stress.

“It is OK to have a vice or a hob­by but it should not be a vice or hob­by that is bad for your health,” he said.

Manocha said he al­so want­ed peo­ple to have faith in the lo­cal health in­sti­tu­tions.

To­day, Manocha said he takes two days off from work every week. He us­es Fri­days and Sat­ur­days to spend time with his fam­i­ly.

He has a gar­den and has changed his di­et to in­clude few­er carbs and more pro­tein. He en­joys veg­eta­bles and no longer eats fried foods.

He al­so main­tains a ba­sic ex­er­cise rou­tine, en­gag­ing in a brisk hour’s walk at Palmiste Park dai­ly. When­ev­er it rains, Manocha ex­er­cis­es on his tread­mill for the same du­ra­tion.

Al­though there are four scars on his chest, Manocha said it re­minds him of the trau­ma he faced and over­came.

“I plan to live as long as pos­si­ble. I have dreams to en­joy my grand­chil­dren and I al­ways say, life is not a bed of ros­es. You will meet ob­sta­cles along the way. This was an ob­sta­cle in life that I bounced up and thank­ful­ly with God’s grace, I was able to over­come. I will con­tin­ue to be in the busi­ness world. This is what keeps my heart pump­ing but I will find healthy ways to de-stress,” he said.

Manocha said it mat­tered not how much mon­ey and pos­ses­sions one ac­cu­mu­lat­ed.

“My per­spec­tive on life has changed. Your wealth is your health. With­out health you can­not en­joy any­thing, not even the air or the sim­ple things in life,” he added.

The young busi­ness­man en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to have faith in the lo­cal doc­tors.

He al­so said peo­ple must en­cour­age one an­oth­er to ex­er­cise reg­u­lar­ly, eat health­ily and live peace­ably with love and kind­ness.