I love my heart

Sept. 27, 2025 is now my other birthday because that was the day I survived a quadruple heart bypass, the first day of my new lease on life. It was a high-risk operation that I prepared for at St. Luke’s Global. My mindset was focused on survival so I fortified my mind, body and soul. I sought guidance from mortals and the divine. And I made sure laughter would have a space in my heart — in my bypassed heart. It helped that before and after operation, I was a happy spirit. That natural happiness quotient figured prominently in my survival kit.

- BUM D. TENORIO, JR.

Three days after my quadruple bypass, physical therapist Aila Lobete made me use the stationary bike for a few minutes to assure me of my resistance and recovery.

When I woke up at the recovery room after my surgery, my first thoughts were of God and Ariel, the Little Mermaid. The first words I said when I was extubated was: “There is a God.” And perhaps because I was still heavy with anesthesia, I sang “Part of Your World” right after I thanked God. You see, the night before my surgery, a nurse came to my hospital room to ask me what kind of music I wanted to hear at the recovery room. I chose Disney and Broadway. But I already sang long before they could play my chosen music. The doctors, nurses, and I laughed — that was less than 20 minutes after my 3.5-hour operation. Yes, I woke up so fast that the experts attending to me dubbed me as both a “miracle and model patient.”

Amid my hoarse laughter, I noticed a red, fluffy, heart-shaped pillow resting on my chest. It came in handy because I was instructed to hug the pillow tightly every time I laughed, coughed or sneezed to cushion the pain. It has now become my security blanket. I knew I went under the knife but I had yet to see the incisions. For a moment, I forgot about the wounds because the polyester cover of the soft heart provided warmth to my cut and stitched sternum. It reminded me of the warmth of my childhood during Christmastime when my mother would bundle me up with a red, hand-me-down wool sweater because it would get windy in Gulod and the four walls of our humble home could barely protect me from the gusty breeze. I welcomed the pillow like it was a part of me and my distant past. When I lifted it, it felt light but full. The pillow’s lightness made me smile when I read the words written on it: “I love my heart.”