Heart attacks look different for us, ladies
(Editor’s Note: This letter to the editor from a woman in Providence Village exceeds our usual word count. The exception was granted because the information shared in this piece could make a life-ordeath difference for our readers.)
So, I had a heart attack this week.
No, seriously. This isn’t a “pass it along” forward post or looking for a pat on the back.
But it did scare me. It was nothing like they talk about growing up or on TV.
As a female who I like to think is an advocate for other females, I want to say something about it, because generally speaking it’s females who experience heart issues differently than the average, obvious signs.
I’m relatively young (about a week and a half out from my 46th birthday).
I didn’t have any pain in my left arm.
I didn’t have numbness or severe chest pain.
And anyone who knows me, knows I am EXTREMELY stubborn about going to the hospital or doctor for anything for that matter.
I started having back pain.
Somewhere between “maybe I pulled a muscle” to “that’s a really weird, internal back pain I can’t really describe.”
It was focused somewhere around the bottom of my left shoulder blade.
My husband felt a knot there that he helped massage out, so we chalked it up to tension/stress.
Around Saturday night the pain subsided so I figured the muscle eased up and went about my weekend.
Sunday night, I went to get ready for bed and the pain came back, radiating around the bottom of my shoulder blade.
I started sweating profusely, my heart rate skyrocketed and I just felt like I was being squeezed.
No chest pain or arm pain.
At about the time I was panicked enough to tell my husband to take me to the hospital, it just “released.”
The squeeze went away; the back pain went away; everything returned to normal.
Even though I’ve never truly had one, I thought, “I guess I just had some sort of random panic attack.”
I’m headed into the age of menopause so figured there’s a first time for everything.
I went to sleep, woke up Monday morning and went about my workday actually feeling pretty good.
That night, at almost the same exact time, it happened again. This time it never let up.
As stubborn as I am, I had Bryan take me to the hospital.
Triage, two sets of bloodwork, recounting my story four different times and a CT with contrast later (all literally in under an hour) confirmed I didn’t have a blood clot in the lungs but “there was some sort of cardiac damage event. We’re going to admit you to the ICU/Cardiac area and have the cardiac unit take a look at the bloodwork and tests and decide what to do tomorrow morning.”
By this time, it was probably 1 a.m.
By noon, I was being wheeled into the cath lab and had a stent put into my 90% blocked main artery to the heart.
The cardiologist gave my husband the “had she not come in when she did, this would have been a very different conversation and outcome” talk.
Now I’m home resting (which is extremely hard for my nature), adjusting to having five new medications, changing my whole lifestyle and thankful I actually listened to my body versus blowing it off.
Ladies especially, please know that it isn’t black and white.
There’s no “too young to happen to me.”
No “that’s not how they describe it.”
No “Google MD” that will truly tell you exactly what’s happening.
Just go if your intuition is telling you something is weird. Asilynne Johnston Providence Village
