Do you know that Heart Disease is the #1 killer of Women?

Here's the story of my heart attack in 1983
I had not been feeling good for a while just tired and not too sure what was going on. I was only 38. Had a husband, three kids and a houseful of pets to take care of. I was never a very sick person always in pretty good health.

I was tired and some nights I would setup in bed trying to breath. My heart would also feel like it was jumping when I would lie down at night. My feet would swell.

In June our oldest son was graduating. I was busy getting the house ready for relatives coming and a graduating party. One morning I got out of bed and came up the stairs and my heart started beating in my neck very hard. I called the clinic and went in to see whatever doctor was there on a Saturday morning. He did an Electrocardiogram and told me it looked a little funny but was nothing. He gave me a prescription for Valium. I didn't take them because I didn't want to take them! Which was foolish they would have helped but they also would have covered up a big problem.

That fall I decided to go see my regular doctor and complained to him about everything I had been having trouble with. He sent me for an Echocardiogram. I waited, weeks went by and he never called me so I called him to find out what my test showed. He told me I had a few palpations learn to live with them and not to come back and see him with this problem. He made me mad and I decided I was done with doctors. I also thought this must all be in my head.

As the year went on I felt no better in fact worse. I would take naps when the kids were at school and I slept so hard it was like I had been someplace else when I woke up. I made it through winter and the next summer but when winter came again. I was really feeling bad by 4:00 in the afternoon I didn't have enough energy for to make dinner. My husband and kids would do it. My husband and I talked about what was going on with me and we even talked cancer. He tried to convince me to go to the doctor again but I couldn't not again.

Here are some of my symptoms, when I would get up in the morning I would feel out of breath and I would have a cold sweat. My ankles and feet would swell, my arm, fingers, and shoulder would hurt on my left side. The center of my back hurt all the time. The back of my neck hurt and my left jaw hurt, felt like a toothache. I was cold all the time I would go to bed with flannel gown, leggings, and my robe and still could not get warm. I would also set up in bed at night trying to breath, it was so bad I slept setting up. I was also very depressed. I had a feeling of impending doom. I also gained weight like 8 lbs over night couldn't figure out what was going on I was dieting. Not knowing the fluid was building up from my heart not working good.I even went through my things and told my husband what I wanted each child to have.

The first of December came and friends were going Christmas shopping and wanted me to go. I went and I felt fine when I left the house. It was cold that day about 20 degrees. When I would get out of the car my jaw would start to throb. I could barely make it into another store but once I was out of the cold and inside the pain went away. Even though I tried to hide it my friends realized I wasn't feeling good and headed for home early.

That night I had to sleep in a chair but when my husband woke me up I was feeling good. He had a fit and told me I had to call a doctor. I looked in the phone book and found a cardiology. Deep inside I knew it was my heart and not cancer. I got in right away even though the doctor wasn't there his physician assistant was there and I knew her. She told me to come in and she would check me. When I got to the doctors office and realized I was going to have to walk up a hill. I just about started to cry because I knew how hard that hill was going to be. When I walked into the doctor's office I was holding my chest and knew I was in trouble. All I remember was some lady jumped up and said "take her first."

They got me to the hospital. The doctor was there. The first thing he said to me was " This is not a heart attack, your to young, your cheeks are bright you look very healthy.." He put me in intensive care just to be safe; a few hours later they realized I had a heart attack. Three days later I had another one. They called my family said they didn't think I was going to make it. I was allergic to lots of the medications they put me on. As you can tell I made it. I was in the hospital one month. I missed Christmas and New Years. The first few years were terrible. I went to Mayo Clinic and they said they only saw one woman in 10 years my age with a heart attack. That was the old days when women didn't have heart attacks young, now days they do. They never figured out why I had the heart attacks. I lost my left main artery from the attack. I have lived on lots of medication from 1983 until last winter when I started sleeping all the time . I was sick and had to go in and have two stints put in my heart I am doing good now.

Hope this helps anyone out there that is not feeling good. Don't be like me, go to the doctor and if one won't listen go to another one until you find one that will listen. If I had received the care I needed right away I may have never had the heart attacks. If only they would have listened.