Last words from Karin Brynard
Scientists are still grappling with ways to treat diseases of the heart. But perhaps, muses Karin Brynard, a problem heart and a heart that aches are one and the same thing. For one of them, at least, there is hope...
What becomes of the broken-hearted? This question was recently posed in a leading scientific journal. What a question, I thought. Of course, the broken-hearted check themselves in at the Heartbreak Hotel – courtesy of the late great Elvis – with its heavy drapes and fake flowers, playing songs like Un-break my Heart over tinny speakers. But the article wasn’t about that at all. It was all science, concerned with the hard mechanics of the old ticker – like a weak heart muscle or a fluttering one, for that matter. Or unhealthy knocks, leaky valves and scarred tissue or slowness, paralysis and, worst case scenario, complete failure. Nothing to do with achy-breakiness at all, rather with the nuts and bolts of that physical gearbox behind our ribs.
Not that there’s much of a difference, I thought. A broken heart is still a broken thing, whether it’s physical or mental. The one can leak just as much as the other. Or become weakened, scarred, grind to a halt and forsake you.
Dying from heartache is real, I learned for the first time last year. Much was written about it in the press after the death of a widely-respected and well-loved radio journalist, who had endured major trauma shortly before she died. Broken heart syndrome, they called it. The scientific name: stress cardiomyopathy. During periods of extreme shock, stress and grief, the body apparently releases large quantities of stress hormones, all detrimental to the heart. The left ventricle of the heart might become enlarged and start slowing down severely, a deadly consequence.
In medical science, heart disease remains a major challenge. One of the reasons is that damaged or dead heart cells can’t be replaced, unlike those of other organs such as the stomach or skin. The latter loses about 30 000 cells every minute, which are quickly replaced by the body.
No such luck for the heart. Sometimes pacemakers help, or even a heart transplant. But there just aren’t enough hearts to go around; far too many people are dying from malfunctioning ones.
For a short while, stem cells seemed to be the answer, as there had been great success with growing other organ parts (like skin) from them. But not the heart. It refuses to be recreated in a petri dish.
Okay, so is there no hope for a ‘broken’ heart? asked the article. Yes indeed there is, it concluded.
My own heart missed a beat, especially because these days I find myself a member of that club.
I read on enthusiastically: scientists are now talking about interventions that will enable heart cells to restore themselves. How it will work, nobody knows but the beauty lies in the possibility of repairing other parts too – like withering brains, for instance. Which reminds me of a plumpish school friend who badly wanted thin ankles so that she could look good in high heels. She firmly believed the day would come when she’d be able to ‘order’ herself a pair of new ankles. But, alas, that day just hasn’t come. Up until the Middle Ages, people believed that the heart was the source of the breath and the soul, the core and essence of a human being. The hearts of royals were often removed and buried separately in sacred places. The body of composer Frédéric Chopin, for example, lies in Paris but his heart is buried in the land of his birth, Poland. In ancient Arabia, on the other hand, it was believed that the heart was also in control of digestion, movement and balance.
All true, I say, even to this day. Just see if you have the strength to be moving about when you’re stricken with grief. See if you can find your balance, even stay upright.
Today’s ‘go-go-go’ culture has no time for this type of heart dis-ease. No, it’s get up and go. Drink a pill, get a transplant and get a life. The Heartbreak Hotel has long since been demolished; developers have bought the land and built a Secure Lifestyle Village there. The old cemeteries, with their concrete angels and hearts buried apart, have been ripped out to make way for highways. To quote Ernest Hemingway: “The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places”. Fortunately, we have poets whose words live on. Like Leonard Cohen, troubadour of the broken heart, who sang: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”. So, one awaits it, that “new, strange power – silent and all-consuming” to rise up in you, as poet Elisabeth Eybers wrote.
To sanctify and give meaning to this one life we have.