Thirty days to live: An encounter with mortality

Death is a beautiful woman, always by my side. She’ll kiss me one day, I know. She’s a companion who reminds me not to postpone anything — ‘Do it now, do it now, do it now.’ Her voice is not threatening, just constant. It tells me what matters is not how long I live, but how I live. I was once stranded in the Mojave Desert, running out of water, and without having read any of the manuals that tell you how to survive in the arid lands. And once, I got lost while climbing in the Pyrenees. Both times, I thought I would be leaving this life, but I didn’t.

Five months ago, I went to the doctor for a medical check-up. I would never have done it on my own accord; my best friend forced me to. Her father had just died, and she insisted that all her friends should do a stress test for the heart. I told her, ‘I’m not a hypochondriac.’ She ordered me to do it anyway. So I went to the doctor’s and did the stress test, which involved riding a stationary bicycle.

‘Mr Coelho,’ the doctor said, ‘you have 30 days to live as two of your arteries are blocked.’ I said, ‘What?’ And then, ‘Are you sure? I’m not feeling anything.’ ‘It’s a silent heart stroke,’ said the doctor. ‘Those two arteries are 90 per cent blocked.’ I told him I’d quickly email other doctors to get second, third, fourth opinions. All turned out the same as the first — I would die in a month at the rate my arteries were clogging. I was scheduled for an urgent procedure two days after. It all depended on what they would find once they opened my heart, a process known as catheterisation.