Of Grace and Gratitude. A year ago today I was taken from the Marudi mountains in the middle of the night by some of the best Guyanese I will ever meet, through some amazingly dense but beautiful rainforest to the Aishalton Health center where the good people of the community had kept vigil until I arrived from the mountains. I am not quite sure how the miners in the Marudi mountains diagnosed that I had suffered a heart attack and decided to send a message to Georgetown about my condition without informing me but I recall being told that my wife and sister had sent a return message that unless they spoke with me that evening, they would be coming personally with troops to get me. Faced with that prospect I thought I had better travel to the mining camp with the radio set to persuade them that there was no need for them to visit the Rupununi. It was a brief almost one way exchange on the radio set that went like this Captain Gouveia: Nigel how you doing. Do you want me to come and get you. Nigel: No I’m fine. Will be good until the morning when I will travel to Lethem and get a flight out. Wife: Nigel, Are you feeling any pain? Husband. I had a slight burning near my heart for the past five hours but I think it’s just heart burn or something minor. Will come out tomorrow. Wife: You have had a pain in your heart for five hours and you think you are alright. We are sending for you now. Husband: No need to, I am really sorry about this. Wife: This conversation is over. At 3.30 AM I was met at the Health Center in Aishalton by a medical team which had flown from Georgetown through the night on a turbo prop to arrive on an unlit runway in Aishalton with the help of the community, who had come out to ensure that there were lighted beacons on the side of the runway to enable a safe landing. Nurse Yolanda Renville who I first saw at Aishalton Health Center at 4.00 AM gently shared with me the precarious circumstances in which I had found myself. She had a wonderful way of letting me know that if I had survived the three hour trip from the Marudi mountains to Aishalton in a 4X4 then the flight to Ogle would be somewhat less challenging. At that stage that was great news. I was immediately comforted by the sight of my cousin and best friend Stephen Fraser, who had accompanied Yolanda on the flight. Despite my insistence that I was fine and perfectly capable of walking from the health center to the aircraft, the good people of Aishalton, it seemed as if the entire village had come out, insisted on lifting me on a mattress onto the back of pick up which took me to the waiting aircraft. It’s always a privilege when you meet one of your old clients when you are in difficult circumstances. The pilot, I hasten to add, was an old client in a civil matter. It was reassuring to see Captain Alvin Clarke in the left seat of the bird early that morning. I don’t remember much of the flight to Georgetown other than thinking, I didn’t know that GPHC had such attractive nurses. I believe that was possibly where the recovery began. My other concern on that flight was I did not want my mother to have to bury her first child so soon after my father’s passing. At Ogle, I was met by my wife Cathy, my brother Stuart, Moses , Captain Gerry Gouveia and a few friends. My stay at the Caribbean Heart Institute under the care of Dr. Mahendra Carpen and his exceptional team restored my faith in the high quality of professional medical care for cardiac patients in Guyana. Mercifully a few days later I was stable enough to have been flown to Trinidad where under the truly gifted care of one the Caribbean’s top heart specialist, Dr. Ron Henry I was successfully treated. At every stage of my journey from the Marudi mountains to Ogle to Trinidad and my return to Guyana I was truly humbled and truly blessed to have benefited from God’s Grace which manifested itself in so many ways through so many persons and circumstances. I was privileged to have benefited from the prayers of many persons, several of whom I did not know and have never met. On my return trip to Guyana twelve ladies from Ann’s Grove who I had never met before and who were returning home from a Church outing in Trinidad, prayed for and with me in the in transit lounge at Piarco Airport, only the hand of God could have afforded me such a blessing. There is little I can ever adequately say to truly express my deep and sincere gratitude to everyone who took time out to contribute and or participate in my recovery or just said a prayer. I encountered kindness in the strangest places during my journey. One year later just a short inadequate note to acknowledge your tremendous contribution and express my profound gratitude.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 01:39:03 +0000