Brian Sankarsingh

A Second Chance

The room grew cold and the air was thin

I felt a deadly transition about to begin

My first thoughts flew to those I love

The ones I’m still so very proud of

My wife who’s the anchor of my soul

My children who both have made me whole

There was so much left I had to say

Before I felt the world slipped away

Then sadness hit a different part

The stories that were locked within my heart

Three books sat waiting nearly done

Any hope for them, now seemed to be gone

To leave them silenced on the shelf

Was like losing a piece of myself

The words I’d labored to compose

Would end before their final close

But I remained and I caught my breath

I walked back from the edge of death

It taught me how to truly live

To use the time I have left to give

But "full" does not mean always fast

Or living every second to make it last

By filling every hour and day

With noise that sweeps the peace away

Sometimes to live is just to be

In quiet still tranquility

To sit to breathe to simply wait

 And value what is on your plate

Don’t wait for pain to clear your view

Or for life’s storm to start anew

Rethink what makes your life feel grand

And hold it gently in your hand

A Full Life Is Not Measured by How Busy You Are

The first people I thought about when I realized I was having a heart attack were my wife and my two adult children. In that moment of terminal clarity, fear stripped everything down to what mattered most. I did not think about work, errands, unfinished plans, or the small frustrations that can consume so much of a normal day. I thought about the people I loved. I thought about all the things I still wanted to tell them, the conversations I had put off, the moments I had assumed we would have later.

I wanted more time with them.

Then another thought hit me: the three-book series I had nearly completed. I had poured so much of my time, imagination, pain, hope, and purpose into those pages. The idea that it might never see the light of day filled me with a sadness I could barely process.

Lying there, facing the possibility that my life might end, I understood how much can remain unsaid and unfinished. We often live as if we have endless time and we tell ourselves we will make the call tomorrow or spend that time with a loved one next week. We will take the trip next year. We will sit down and write when life slows down. We will say “I love you” when the moment feels right.

But life does not always give us the luxury of waiting for the perfect moment.

I survived that near-fatal heart attack and that survival bore gratitude in its wake. However, that gratitude was tinged with grief. A grief for the loss of the version of myself that I believed was  invincible. Grief for the time spent rushing through life without truly being present in it. That experience taught me to live fully at every opportunity, but living fully does not always mean doing more. It does not mean packing every day with activity, chasing every goal, or proving your worth through exhaustion. A full life is not necessarily a busy life. Sometimes, living fully means sitting quietly beside the person you love. Sometimes it means breathing deeply and noticing that you are still here. Sometimes it means putting the phone down, stepping away from the noise, and allowing yourself to be present in a single, ordinary or mundane moment.

A cup of coffee in the morning. A conversation with your child. A shared laugh with your spouse. The sound of rain against the window. These moments may seem small, but they are not small when you understand how quickly life can change.

My heart attack forced me to rethink what a full life means. For me, it means loving people while I still have the chance to tell them. It means finishing the work that matters to me. It means making room for joy, rest, reflection, and gratitude. It means no longer treating my life as something I can postpone.

If you leave this post with one thing, remember that you do not need a crisis to ask yourself what truly matters. You can ask today. Who do you need to call? What do you need to say? What dream have you delayed because you believed there would always be more time? Rethink what a full life means to you. Then make space to live it. Not someday, but now!

What I Learned from my Heart Attack

I did everything they told me to do. No smoking. No drinking. I ate the right foods most of the time. I trained regularly. I used my CPAP every night. Using intermittent fasting, I stayed at a healthy weight. I tried to manage my stress. I did yoga for my breathing. I protected my sleep like it mattered. I went for my annual checkups. I followed the rules. And still, on March 7, my heart nearly stopped in the middle of the gym.

 When the doctors looked at the results and said the word “genes,” something inside me went quiet. Not in a peaceful way. In a hollow, angry way. All that effort, all those careful choices, and the answer was basically bad luck in your blood. It felt like a slap. Like the universe had watched me try and still decided to knock me down anyway.

That answer lives rent free in my head. It’s frustrating in a way that’s hard to explain without sounding bitter and resentful. Because if doing everything right still wasn’t enough, then what was the point?

 I’ve caught myself thinking that dark thought more than once. The one that says, “The hell with it.” Why keep watching what I eat? Why keep pushing through workouts when my body can still betray me? Why bother with any of it if one day my heart can just decide to quit no matter how well I behaved?

 It would be easier in some ways. To stop caring. To eat what I want, skip the discipline, and just live whatever time I have left without the constant effort. Part of me wants to lean into that. It feels like a kind of revenge against the unfairness.

 But then there’s the other side. The one that whispers that maybe those same habits are part of the reason I’m still here at all. Maybe the fact that I wasn’t overweight, that I exercised, that I used the CPAP, that I didn’t smoke or drink…maybe those things kept the damage from being even worse. Maybe they gave my body just enough strength to survive the trauma of what happened.

 I don’t know which one is true. And that’s the hardest part.

 Right now I’m standing at the crossroads, and both paths feel possible. One leads to giving up. The other leads to continuing even though I know it might not be enough. I don’t feel noble about it. I feel tired and I feel angry. I also feel scared that no matter what I choose, my heart could still decide the ending in whatever form or fashion it sees fit. But isn’t that everyone’s reality?

 Look, when I reflect on this conundrum here is what I know. If I stop now, I’m choosing to let the heart attack win completely. If I keep going, at least I’m still fighting for the life that came back to me and fighting with the life I have yet to live.

 I haven’t made my final decision yet. Some days the “hell with it” voice is louder. Other days I lace up my shoes anyway. I often feel I will never have an answer, and this must be a choice I intentionally make every single day. 

My heart attack changed the rhythm, but it didn't stop the song.

I stepped through those doors on that June morning
the same ones that watched me fall without warning
My chest felt tight before I took a step
and fear moved in like it still had something left

Trepidation and fear said this was a mistake
whispering their doubts like conniving snakes
Excitement was quieter, but it refused to leave
though I remembered the loss that I grieved

People had told me to slow down and be still
that pushing myself would only reopen what healed
I heard them, but something inside wouldn’t agree
Even though my safety was not guaranteed

I lifted weights even when my muscles complained
and ran when my lungs burned and my legs felt the strain
I kept showing up until a 5K was done
forty-nine minutes of proving I wasn’t quite gone

They gave me those numbers I still carry around
thirty-three percent where strength should be found
Fifty-three percent of my heart either scarred or dead
words that still echo inside of my head

Fear hasn’t left me, it still shows up at night
when a strange feeling makes me question if I am alright
But I made a choice after everything broke in two
I refused to live like my best days were through

So I keep coming back to the place where it started
even when my body feels tired and guarded
Because something old is stirring again
quiet but steady, like it might still remain

I’m still afraid, but I’m also still here
choosing to move through the doubt and the fear
Not because I’m fearless, but because I decided
I won’t let one day decide how my story is guided

Returning to the Gym After a Heart Attack

On March 7, 2026, I had a near-fatal heart attack in the gym.

 To this very moment, that fact carried its own weight. The gym was no longer simply a place of movement, strength, sweat, and routine. It became the place where my body gave me a warning I could not ignore. A threat of disheartening implication. A place tied to fear, uncertainty, and the realization that life can turn in a single moment.

 Then, on June 22, I walked back through those doors.

 It was not an ordinary return. I felt fear moving through me before I even entered. I felt trepidation. Inside I felt the quiet question of whether my body would betray me again wash over me. However, I felt excitement too; because walking into that gym meant I was still here. I was healing. I was moving forward. And beneath it all, I felt tremendously pleased with how far I had come.

 Recovery demanded more from me than I expected. People around me told me to slow down. Take it easy. Do not push yourself. Their concern came from love, and I understand that now more than ever. But inside me, another voice kept speaking. It was not reckless. It was determined. It told me that I had to reclaim my life, one deliberate step at a time.

So, I walked, even when breathlessness made every step feel like strenuous work. I walked through the extreme exhaustion that followed. I returned to resistance training, even when muscles that had been inactive during March protested with soreness. I began jogging, slowly, cautiously, and with purpose. Eventually, I completed a 5K in 49 minutes. That time may not mean much to someone else. To me, it means everything. Every minute represented a body that had survived. Every stride carried the memory of what nearly happened. Internally, I made the decision not to let that memory become a prison. I was not trying to prove that I was invincible. I had learned, painfully, that I am not. I was proving that healing can be active.

I resolved to ensure that fear does not get to make every decision for me although it insists on being my constant companion. Although it forces me to notice every twinge and ache I feel in my chest. Walking back into the gym brought all of that to the surface. I knew the medical reality. I had been told that my left anterior descending artery had only a 33 percent ejection fraction and that 53 percent of my heart muscle was either dead or injured. Those are not insignificant words that you can just push through. They carry the force of a changed future. They compel you to look at your mortality in a way most people spend their lives avoiding.

There are moments when those numbers echo loudly. Moments when a strange sensation, a shortness of breath, or a wave of fatigue can pull me back toward that day in March. Fear is still there and it still pulses through my body, mind and emotions. It does not disappear simply because I will to. It waits in the background, reminding me of what my body has endured.

But fear is not the only thing that remains.

There is also anticipation and gratitude. More than that, there is determination.

After my heart attack, I realized I had two choices. I could embrace an illness mindset; one that sees every limitation as a final sentence, every setback as proof that life is over as I knew it. Or I could choose its polar opposite: a mindset grounded in resilience, discipline, hope, and the belief that healing is still possible.

I chose the opposite.

That does not mean pretending nothing happened. It does not mean ignoring the seriousness of heart disease or disregarding medical guidance. Real determination includes listening to your body, working with your medical team, respecting the limits of recovery, and understanding that progress does not need to be rushed to be real. But it also means refusing to surrender my identity to one catastrophic event.

I am more than a damaged heart. I am more than an ejection-fraction percentage. I am more than the parts of my heart muscle that survived unscarred. I am a person who endured something terrifying, who faced the possibility of not seeing another day, and who now gets to experience the ordinary miracles that once seemed guaranteed: walking, lifting, running, breathing deeply…and yes, stepping into a gym.

And lately, I have felt something return.

The old energy I carried before the cardiac event is beginning to come back. It’s not happening all at once, and not in exactly the same form or intensity, but enough for me to recognize it. It is a familiar current underneath the fatigue and caution. It reminds me that my body is still working with me. It reminds me that healing is not always visible from the outside. Sometimes it shows itself in a longer walk, an extra repetition, a jog that feels less difficult than it did last week, or the courage to return to the place where everything changed.

June 22 was not simply my first day back in the gym. It was my declaration that although I am still afraid, I am still healing. I recognize that I still have hard days ahead. But I am here, and I am moving. I am learning to live with the reality of what happened without allowing it to define every part of what comes next.

The heart attack changed me.

 But it did not finish me.

Get educated

Educating yourself about heart health is your best defense against cardiovascular disease, which remains a leading cause of death worldwide. When you understand how your lifestyle choices such as diet, exercise, and stress management impact your arteries and blood pressure, you gain the power to prevent serious complications before they start. Awareness helps you recognize that many heart conditions develop silently over years, making early intervention and proactive habits essential for your long-term well-being.

Knowing the warning signs of a heart attack or stroke can save your life or the life of someone you love. Your ability to identify symptoms like unusual fatigue, chest discomfort, or shortness of breath ensures you seek medical help during the critical window when treatment is most effective. Even though I didn’t believe it was happening, I was able to recognize the symptoms and get help in time. By staying informed and sharing this knowledge within your community, you contribute to a culture of health that reduces medical emergencies and improves the quality of life for everyone around you. 

Heart Health Education in the Indo-Caribbean Community

Heart disease education is a critical need for people  in the Indo-Caribbean community because we face significantly higher risks compared to other ethnic groups. Our genetics and history often predispose us to conditions like diabetes and hypertension at a younger age. By learning about these risks early, we can take active steps to monitor our blood pressure and cholesterol levels before they lead to life-threatening complications.

Understanding the specific dietary and lifestyle factors within Indo-Caribbean culture also helps us make healthier choices without losing our heritage. Many traditional dishes are high in saturated fats and refined carbohydrates, which contribute to arterial blockages. When we educate yourself on portion control and healthier cooking alternatives, we protect our heart while still enjoying the flavors we love.

Early awareness empowers us to recognize subtle symptoms that we might otherwise ignore or dismiss. Since heart disease often remains a "silent killer" in our community, knowing when to seek medical help can save our lives or the life of a family member. Through this knowledge, we break the cycle of chronic illness and ensure a healthier future for the next generation.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation has a host of resources and tools to help.