THE SECRET INGREDIENT
Sally Bee
Delicious and easy, heart-healthy
recipes that might just save your life
dedication
I would like to dedicate this book to my family:
To my three precious little food tasters, Tarik, Kazim and Lela.
To Dogan, who has been by my side since my heart attacks to support me but was brave enough to let me go when I needed to get independent again.
To my dad, who supports everything I do and gives the best advice when I can’t see the wood for the trees.
And to my mum, Jill, who lost her brave battle with cancer but is still with me in some way every day.
This book is for you, Mum. I so wish you had lived to see it. x
Contents
My story begins on a lovely sunny, happy day, at a child’s birthday party. I was talking to my friends and my husband, Dogan, laughing and watching the children play. One moment, everything was just as it should be, but within one breath, my whole life turned upside down, never to be the same again.
Suddenly I felt extremely poorly. I handed my nine-month-old baby girl to a friend, and ran to the toilet. I had a feeling of impending doom, as if a big black cloud was looming over me, making every breath more meaningful. I understood immediately that something very serious was happening to me and that it was beyond my control. I collapsed on the floor, feeling as if my chest was being crushed and struggling to breathe. I felt sick and hot and sweaty. The pain I was enduring was so much worse than giving birth to any of my three babies.
I managed to get back to my friends, and what followed was chaos. An ambulance was called, and while we waited my kind friends tried in vain to help me - bringing me ice, water and a bag to breathe into. All I wanted at that moment, though, was to stare into my husband’s eyes because I needed him to be with me and to understand what I was saying to him. I managed to give him some brief instructions on what to do with the children, but I guess I was telling him something much more than that too.
The ambulance arrived, and the crew checked me over. They managed to calm me down a little and took an ECG (a measurement of the heartbeat). They said there was a slight abnormality, but because of my young age (36) and the fact that I led a healthy lifestyle and there was no family history of heart problems, they were happy to rule out anything serious there and then. Even so, we decided that I should go to the hospital immediately to get properly checked out.
After a few hours spent being looked over, I was eventually let home with some indigestion medicine!
I spent the next couple of days recovering and feeling traumatized by the whole event. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt something had changed inside me. A couple of days later, after clearing up the kitchen, the pain hit me again. It felt like a herd of elephants stamping on my chest. Each breath was tight and so painful. If at that moment someone had offered to cut off my right arm so that the pain would go away, I would readily have handed over the knife!
My husband called for an ambulance again, and events at the hospital this time started to unravel, like a really bad soap opera. It started with pure panic. I felt I was not being taken seriously and I was left alone in my cubicle, suffering in agony. I couldn’t call anyone to come and help me because the pain literally took mybreath away. I thought I might die alone in that cubicle and not be found for hours. Eventually one student nurse looked at my ECG and her jaw dropped. Suddenly, I was no longer alone; the room was buzzing with people all around me. At one point I had three cardiologists looking at my heart trace chart, saying that it was telling them that I was having a heart attack but that they didn’t believe it - because of my age, lifestyle, etc.
The next morning I was told by a cardiologist that my blood tests showed I had suffered a very serious heart attack. I was relieved that I had survived, but felt numb with disbelief. In fact, I got really cross with the doctor for talking such rubbish! I just wanted to go home.
Unfortunately, it was quite a while before I did. Throughout the day, I started to suffer more chest pains. I could feel myself sinking lower and lower and I kept being moved from one bed to another, closer and closer to the Cardiac Care Unit. I needed to be monitored constantly and my heart rhythm was doing some amazing acrobatics. A nurse was sent to take a scan of my heart. I suppose it is down to my natural optimism that I still expected her to say, Oh everything’s fine… probably eaten something dodgy!’ But her expression was grave. She has since told me that she was shocked - it was the most excessive damage she has ever seen in anyone so young.
I continued 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