by
Andrea King
The world is full of wonderful people, who, if they weren’t in it, would make it a less beautiful place.
On January 19, 2021, Barbados almost lost one of those people, in the person of Ingrid Holder, a female pioneer in entertainment management, who is well known in regional entertainment circles. That she is affectionately and respectfully called the “Krosfyah engine” and the “energizer bunny” is an indication of both her importance, and level of energy with which she lives her life.
“On January 12 I decided to do a two-week detox cleanse, and on January 19, a week in with the detox pills which were issued by a herbal specialist, the amount of pills that were issued to be taken per day were apparently too many for my body mass and it depleted my sodium intake so low that it caused a seizure. I apparently had several seizures at both FMH and QEH, and I went into a coma which lasted two days,” Ingrid shared with Better Health.
“I started to feel ill from January 18 and I went back to the place where I was issued the pills. They tried to see how best to make me feel better but it wasn’t working, so I asked my brother, Mark Holder, to drop me to FMH,” she recalled.
“When they told me to sit on the bed everything went black from there. My brother told me after I blacked out, I started to go into a seizure and I think it was at a point where they couldn’t get me resuscitated and they had call the ambulance from the QEH which took me to the A& E.”
Apart from feeling relieved that she came out of her two-day coma with all faculties intact and body functioning normally, Ingrid was in shock at what happened.
“I STARTED TO FEEL
ILL FROM JANUARY 18 AND I WENT
BACK TO THE PLACE WHERE I WAS
ISSUED THE PILLS. INGRID LEARNT FROM THE DOCTORS THAT HER
SODIUM LEVELS
WERE SO LOW, DEPLETED BY THE DETOX PILLS, THAT IT CAUSED THAT REACTION IN HER BODY.
“Never in my life have I ever been ill – not a cold, not a flu, no high blood pressure, no diabetes, no hypertension, no nothing. I’ve never been ill in my 47 years. January 19 is the first time I ever went to the hospital as a patient, apart from 1993 when I gave birth to my awesome daughter Shaquille Haynes-Millar. I have never been hospitalised,” she exclaimed.
Ingrid learnt from the doctors that her sodium levels were so low, depleted by the detox pills, that it caused that reaction in her body. She pinpointed what led her to do a detox.
“I would have been stressed out since last year when we had our last gig and had to shut down from March. Our last gig was February 21, 2020, and we haven’t worked since then, and we’re still not working. Apart from the sodium being depleted I would say stress is a major factor. Sometimes you internalise everything that is going on with you and it can deplete your body as well, so I would say that I was so stressed out I decided to do a detox,” she explained.
“I was stressed out for a whole year and I didn’t have a seizure, so I wouldn’t say it contributed to my seizure, but maybe at that point, especially coming off Old Year’s Night 2020 and that event being cancelled – with everything going on it may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say.”
Ingrid’s bubbly personality is felt and voice is heard occasionally on radio as a host for some of her clients’ programmes. The diminutive lady owns Live Wire Entertainment, and manages the popular soca band Krosfyah, as well as its lead singer Edwin Yearwood, along with Lead Pipe, Saddis, and Sanctuary.
She also facilitates bookings for a host of other local and regional artistes including Marvay, Hypa Sounds, Sizzla, Taurus Riley, Luciano, Junior Kelly, and Tanya Stephens to name a few. Ingrid also worked with various international management agencies and filtered bookings for their roster. These would have included Fantasia, Neyo, Boris Cudjoe, the late Joe Jackson and Vivica Fox. She is also the logistics and liaison manager for the Barbados Reggae Festival and the Hennessey Artistry live music concert.
As such, her lifestyle rarely acknowledges “normal” working hours, and invariably includes very long days.
“I’m always busy. They call me the ultimate hustler. And I’m always eating.
I’m 105 lbs. My metabolism is very high, so I don’t gain weight, but I always try to eat healthy. I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. I drink a lot of porridges and I drink a lot of water,” she revealed.
She added that she eats some meats, and drinks mostly natural teas of leaves straight from the tree, like bay leaf and soursop. Her diet before comprised ground foods, greens, fruits, especially grapes for which she declared her undying love. She drinks lots of water as well, and is allergic to shell fish.
“Where my health is concerned, with long nights and long days, I try not to eat past 7 p.m., but obviously sometimes with events you’d tend to still eat and drink after seven as show time is not until around 10 and when you’re travelling you tend to eat more sometimes. But I think I have a pretty healthy regime and I try to keep to my schedules. When it comes to long days and nights when I get a chance to sit, I sit and put my feet up,” she relayed.
Since leaving hospital, where she stayed for 17 days, Ingrid said she is functioning normally.
“Physically I feel great. I wasn’t told by the doctors to do anything in particular, I wasn’t given any medication. I miraculously came out of my coma and recuperated without having to take any medication other than the sodium drips, or take any medication after I was discharged. I don’t have any speech impediments, paralysis, no memory loss. Everything has gone back to normal thus far and I think that is because my sodium and potassium imbalance came back to normal.
“Outside of that I think it is mainly because I ate healthy and lived a pretty healthy lifestyle.
I go for walks. And I always used to try to exercise – walking or jog on the beach. I walk on the road and even during this pandemic and curfew times I would still try to put in a little.
Pre-COVID I would be in my car or on a plane, from my car to the plane and from the plane to my car.
“Recently I started back riding my bicycle. I’m feeling refreshed, revived, rejuvenated, refocused and trying to wrap my head around what else I can do to generate some income because that is where my stress levels will go up. Trying to identify other avenues to pay my bills and live as a human on this planet called Earth, to which I was sent back a mere two months ago.”
She said sent back because while she was in her coma, Ingrid had an unforgettable experience, in which she saw her niece whom she buried last October, and she heard a voice which commanded her to go back home. It is an experience which has left her feeling less worried and more purposeful. That is a far place from what led her to do a detox.
The mother of one gave credit to her child for the steadfastness displayed during her hospitalisation.
“My daughter Shaquille Millar was at the hospital each of the 17 days I was there until February 5. I really need to acknowledge her. My ‘mini-me’ as I say, my backbone, my spine, my heart, my everything!”
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