women Archives - Susan Smith Heart

WORDS MATTER – Especially when it comes to your Heart

“Are you having any chest pain?” This is the first question I’m asked at every cardiologist visit.

“No, sometimes I have a dull ache in my collarbone though,” is my reply.

I finally learned that dull ache in my collarbone is MY form of Angina, which is a type of chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart.

It’s common for women to have different symptoms of heart attack than men – I learned that in my training at Mayo Clinic. It’s the cornerstone of my heart talks telling about and describing our symptoms.

Here’s Mayo Clinic’s list: Neck, jaw, shoulder, upper back or abdominal discomfort; Shortness of breath; Pain in one or both arms; Nausea or vomiting; Sweating; Lightheadedness or dizziness; Unusual fatigue.

What I didn’t realize is it also common for women to use a plethora of descriptive language like “pressure, fullness, tightness” instead of the word pain.

The difference is men actually often have crushing chest pain and will say so very succinctly. Doctors and medical staff understand the words “chest pain” but often can’t relate to our atypical or weird explanations.

I know pain. I’ve had a knee replaced, delivered two babies in the old days (1966 and 1970), had four dental implants (before it was quick & easy), and the most painful pain I ever experienced was having breast implants removed.

So I know pain, I know excruciating pain and a dull ache in my collarbone is not pain and “excuse me, it’s not in my chest, it’s in my collarbone!”

My heart sister, Robin Olson, put up with three days of agonizing pain in her shoulder. Finally, she went to the ER at the hospital where she worked for the pain.

“They told me I was having a heart attack. I said, no I’m not! I just have a pinched nerve!” She proceeded to get three stents that day.

Some of the stories I’ve heard from other heart sisters include going to the dentist to find the tooth causing jaw pain. Or, crushing fatigue and upper back pain, pain in the wrist, upper lip numbness, and a persistent cough.

Don’t get me wrong, some women do have chest pain radiating down their arm like heart sister, Karen Sammer. She was lucky because she was at a Toastmasters meeting held in a meeting room at the hospital.

Her pain was diagnosed as SCAD (Spontaneous coronary artery dissection) which is where a piece of the artery tears away and clogs it just like plaque might. She was lucky to receive fast care.

I blame those “Hollywood” heart attacks we see in the movies of men clutching their chests and collapsing from extreme chest pain. They fill our heads with what a heart attack looks like – and that is always Chest Pain.

I believe we women just can’t say those words, mainly because our discomfort is often not in our chest but in what we think of as a non-related area. But if we don’t say the words “chest pain” we may not receive the kind of care we need.

It seems to me, the answer lies in the medical community hearing our words and recognizing symptoms from our weird (to them) descriptions of discomfort.

I know pain, and that dull ache was just an inconvenient discomfort on a day I was too busy to be bothered with a little ache. So I did what we women do best – push through it so we can finish our errands, our project, our trip, whatever it is we’re doing.

Next time you’re asked, “are you having chest pain” – describe your discomfort as something you know is a symptom for heart attack in women.

Also, use strong descriptive words and tell how it is affecting your lifestyle. (for example I could say, “my collarbone is aching and I believe that type of discomfort in my upper body could be a symptom of heart attack in women”) Name the exact location of the discomfort, point if you must. Don’t minimize your symptoms and never be embarrassed.

Remember your words matter, especially when it comes to your heart!

HEART BROKEN

HEART BROKEN

I broke my heart in 2018, not from a lost love, but because it really broke.

Have you ever broken a bone? My sister broke her leg on the ski slopes once. I was skiing right next to her on the same slope, yet my leg did not break.

She was taken to the hospital in a nearby Colorado town. There, a doctor set her leg in a cast to heal and said, “You’ll be good as new in six weeks.”

If you break your heart, the doctor can fix some things, but you’re not quite as good as new. The “fix” is often a tiny little stent inserted into your artery while in a “Cath Lab” at the hospital.

I have two; some people have four or five. I met a guy once who has nine.

I joined the ranks of fixed repaired hearts on a sunny Saturday in February. It was my birthday, and I was terrified because when they said heart attack, I was sure I would die.

When you get this kind of fix, somehow you believe your heart will go back to normal, but with many of us heart patients, there’s damage. Even though that artery is working, it is not back to full capacity.

After heart failure, my life changed forever. Each day of my hospital stay, I heard from either a doctor or a nurse about pills with long names, special diets to keep sodium and cholesterol levels at bay, exercises to strengthen my body and my heart, and a contraption called a defibrillator life vest.

Susan Smith Heart with defibrillator life vest

The phrase “new normal” was bantered around like a volleyball. I began to cry. A soft-spoken cardiac nurse said, “What’s wrong?”

I blubbered, “I don’t know what to do. I had a heart attack and it was fixed, but I don’t feel like it! I want to feel normal but I don’t!”

If I could have stomped my foot I would. I was pissed off.

I honestly thought that while he lived with us, we’d eat dinner together, sit around and watch TV or movies, and talk about everything like the old days. But his disposition is markedly changed; he’s nauseous, cranky, and despondent. I desperately want to help him feel better and offer to make him breakfast on this particular cool fall morning.

He’s just shuffling back to the guest bedroom where he’s living. And I know he will shut the door.

I really want to hug him this day. I really want to feed him, talk to him, get his blankie, or do any of the mom things that are coming to me…. Instead, I just see the back of his bald head.

And then I saw it. My hands fly to my mouth to cover my gasp. At the base of his neck right at the beginning of the back hairline is the mark of the forceps from his birth. I always noticed it when he was a baby and felt he was forever marked by the brutal instrument doctors used at that time to pull babies from their mother’s womb.

It looked like four red dots, a mark like a chicken might make if you took its claw print. Tim’s hair had covered this for decades, now it’s visible and it puts me into a new state of sadness.

My son, my beloved most treasured son, has cancer; he’s suffered every measure of torture from the pain in his gut which gave the first sign to the 6 drug cocktail he’s given in his vein every other week. Then a periodic lumbar puncture to test his bone marrow and gallons of blood drawn over the three years of his treatment.

He’s one of the few people I’ve known his entire life and I love him like I love my own life ….and he stands with his back to me, an angry, sullen and sick person and I can see the evidence of his birth.

I cry all day. I pray. I ask my friends to pray. I see a therapist. After six sessions and some drugs, I get through it. Better yet, HE gets through it.

In March 2010, his cancer journey ends as Doctors pronounce him in remission. He begins to pick up the pieces of his life.

Of course, I’m grateful for his recovery, his life, and for his renewed enthusiasm to help others. He is an avid healthy lifestyle proponent, a writer sharing his cancer journey and his love of running. I’m grateful he’s in my life and that he’s my son.

I’m proud when I hear my son say he’s kicked cancer’s butt. He likes to quip; “People often say it’s good to see you! I answer with it’s good to be seen!” Seven years ago I wasn’t so sure I’d be seen again. But I kicked cancer’s butt and I say yes, it’s good to be seen. Yep, that’s my boy.

Emotional roller coaster – hospital release (the story part 4)

I’ve been writing about my heart attack to spread the word to all women about the risks of heart disease. It is the leading cause of death in women (killing one in three).

I’ve written previously about my early symptoms, the day of the heart attack, and the hospital journey.

Today, I share my emotional roller coaster getting released from the hospital.

By day three of my four days in the hospital, my brain was on overload trying to take in every face, test result, and procedure explanation. I have three cardiologists, four nurses, a dietician, a pharmacist, a physiologist, and a hospitalist. One nurse is a counselor with a soothing voice and a fuzzy cardigan.

Dr. P, my hospitalist, visits me every day, squatting down to look me in the eye. He always holds my hand and asks if I know what’s happened to me. His soft voice is calming.

He makes sure I know I had a heart attack and that I’ve had a stent surgery procedure. Each day, whatever my circumstance, he explains.

Fuzzy cardigan nurse Sarah says, “you’ll find yourself feeling depressed because you almost died. Just expect this at some time.”

A kid in blue scrubs (really a cardiac intern) says he’ll walk me down the hall to see how far I can go. This excites me. I want to prove I’m strong enough to be released.

He offers his arm and I’m surprised I can only make it a few steps out the door of my room before I’m so winded I can’t continue. My ankles are wobbly and legs are weak.

Then there’s Debbie, a manufacturer’s rep. She’s dressed in a pretty slim skirt and peplum jacket. I want her to meet my son, she’s that cute.

She’s there to explain the defibrillator life vest to me. She opens a 6-sided color brochure featuring a contraption I’m supposed to wear 24-7 for six weeks.

It’s like a fabric sports bra with metal paddles in the back that will shock my heart if I should have a heart attack while wearing it! It’s full of sensors to monitor everything about my heart and transmit to a far location via modem.

This is a Sunday so I won’t get the real thing till Monday.

The dietician lady wears red scrubs and is really sweet. She launches into long explanations of what I should be eating for the rest of my life.

I’m especially intrigued with her visual of my salt intake. “Just make a little mound about the size of a dime in the palm of your hand” that’s how much salt you can have in a day. Not from the salt shaker but from everything.”

She proceeds to teach me how to read labels.

I promise to read it all and drift off into sleep. I hear my husband and doctor talking about “ejection fraction” numbers.

EF is the amount of blood leaving the heart when it contracts My ”EF” is at a low 15 with a normal heart putting out 35 to 55 EF. I really need that defibrillator life vest.

I ordered heart-healthy chicken soup for dinner, but it tastes like dishwater—yuck, and there is no salt. I ate the saltines, and I wanted to go home.

I doze off again and hear the clicking of heels come in my room, I open my eyes and see my best friend bearing a vase of flowers. “Happy birthday”, says Diana. “I told you not to come!” I blurt.

“I had to see you with my own eyes to make sure you’re ok,” she says. I start to cry. I didn’t want anyone to see me so debilitated, oxygen tube, catheter bag, tubes and needles in both arms, bruises on every visible surface.

I want to tell her I almost died and how scared I am. But I can’t get any more words out, because my breathing is so labored. We hug.

Finally, its Monday morning and there’s flurry of activity – a young man in gray scrubs goes through my discharge papers – one by one he reads and tells me what they say so I can sign them.

Most importantly is the long list of drugs, their names, dosage and what they are for. Do this, do that, make an appointment for this doctor or that blood test.
I want to concentrate.

A perky lady dressed in brown corduroy comes in with my very own life vest. She shows me how to put it all together inserting the paddles into the slots and the round sensors with their skinny black cords. A two and half pound battery pack attaches with a cord on the side.

I’m ready to put it on and get out of there! But no, I have to prove to her I can put it together just like she did.

She disconnects everything she did and makes me do it while she watches. It’s complicated and there’s a long list of things to do every day.

The battery must be removed and replaced while putting the spare on a charger, each sensor (there are eight) must be touching my body through the thin fabric. There’s no slacking off allowed – this is serious!

The kid comes to walk me again, this time I make it farther than before, I want to jump for joy but my arm won’t let go of his.

MY FIRST NIGHT AT HOME.

We decide I should sleep in the guest room with the walker nearby because I have to get up in the night to go to the bathroom and I’m not strong enough to make it on my own.

I have a nightmare, wake with a start, I begin to hyperventilate! I’m terrified my breath won’t come. I make my way out to the family room, where there’s a recliner; I get in it and cover up with the afghan – I breathe better because I’m sitting up.

I had a long talk with God, thanking Him for sparing my life and asking Him to help me breathe better right now! I asked God what I did to deserve this and what I could do to repay Him for saving me.

I fall asleep mid-prayer.