Mani

Heart attack

When a heart attack changes everything

Osteoporosis has complicated Mani's recovery after her heart attack and bypass surgery. Watch her talk about some of the difficulties she's encountered on her journey.

When Dr Mani came to New Zealand with a PhD in Education and master’s degrees in Hindi Literature and English Literature, her plan was to write books and translate them from Hindi to English. But heart disease soon “shattered” those dreams.

When her symptoms escalated one morning, Mani ended up in hospital, where she learned she’d had a heart attack. To make matters worse, Mani learned she also had severe osteoporosis. It meant that when it came to having bypass surgery to treat the blockages in her heart, recovery was complicated and painful. Mani’s bones were so fragile that doctors had to operate twice in order to get the grip needed to hold the wires in place to re-knit her ribcage back together.

“The wires are poking, I can feel it, but I have to live with it, there is no other way,” says Mani.

“I feel emotionally sometimes very much disheartened, that once upon a time I used to work 12 hours a day, thousands of students under my control, hundreds of teachers under my control, and now I can’t even look after my own self… Everything has changed.”

Shared December 2016