Broken-heart Syndrome or Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy.


Thanks to Singapore’s worst programming and also to some extent my laziness to install Netflix, once in a while when I do switch on the television I end up seeing a lot of old series. Today was a very early season of Grey’s Anatomy in which I heard some complicated medical term, which the doctor finally ended by telling the patient that the patient had a broken heart, but he will be fine.

I got curious and looked up the medical term – Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy, which sounds so Japanese, hence quiet, cool and intriguing. But this literally means a broken-heart syndrome.

This condition is because of emotional stress and in this there is a sudden temporary weakening of the muscular portion of the heart. This made me think of how easily and with immense thoughtlessness we make our heart vulnerable to suffer from broken-heart syndrome and then spend years making the heart feel better again. I remembered how a friend of mine once, was free-falling in love and I was probing him on the object of his affections, after describing the person in detail my friend looked at me, smiled his beautiful smile and said, “I know I am going to end up with a broken heart.” (or we can call it Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy), I just smiled and secretly prayed for it to work out for him.

But few years later down the road, like the doctor told the patient, that he had a broken heart but now he is going to be fine. So my friend is fine as well and likewise many of us.

Personally, I am more inclined to use the medical term Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy next time because:

  1. It sounds like a medical condition and not an emotional one.
  2. It sounds like there are experts to take care of it who have studied the know how to deal with it, which means that the person suffering from this medical condition does not have to do something all by oneself to get out of the broken heart syndrome.
  3. Like most serious medical conditions, it feels like it can be cured, unlike when in the broken heart phase no matter what the world tell you, you just feel that nothing will make you better again, and it never really makes you completely better, ever.

So, Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy it is for the broken hearted ones.

Love and Me today. 


So this is what happened between Love and me today….

Like many other Sundays I had a list of things to do, some new, some old, but things to do. Old being my yoga class, which I felt I fared well in despite of a bruised and bleeding knee (it wasn’t that bloody, but not good) and a twisted ankle. And new being an exhibition and a documentary in a theatre I hadn’t been to so far. The theatre could safely be called “Hipsterish” but they do screen good cinema.

While walking out of my Yoga class and rushing for the exhibition I saw one really young and super sweet couple. They did not look more than 17 or 18, their smiles were beautiful, geeky, sheepish, yet elated ear to ear smiles, they walked with a swagger and their DSLRs hanging onto their shoulders. The girl looked like a fresh out of school, wearing a short pleated skirt, the large frames surrounded her face and eyes which long time from now hopefully will still be as shiny, holding a long stemmed very deep red rose.

The boy alongside her was looking like he had done the best thing in his life by giving her the rose but had no idea what to do next. So there they were, walking, she, smelling the rose and holding it for the world to see, and he, looking awkward and happy and staring at the road ahead, I think he couldn’t possibly look at her or she would have seen that his smile was bigger than hers.

In those few seconds when I saw them walking I remembered how wonderful it is to be fresh in love, it is all so simple, hopeful, and it feels like nothing can take this feeling away and that it will always remain like this and the only way it can change is by getting better. The two of them looked like, that all they wanted to do was go on for an endless walk. And I also realised that no matter how young or old we become, love always feels like that, an endless walk you want to be onto, staring at the road ahead because you don’t want to let in the other person in on how happy you are to be just there, and you always look like that girl in pleated skirt holding the rose and smiling till cheeks hurt and that boy, staring ahead and thinking, now that I have given her the rose, shall I hold her hand….

I couldn’t help but stop myself and tell that they looked awfully cute together.