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Heart Attacker
Heart Disease is predator to all women
by Andrea L. Zrimsek
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women across the United States, claiming almost 500,000 lives each year. For every one woman who dies from breast cancer, there are nearly a dozen who will die from heart disease.
Within six years, one-third of all women who have a heart attack will have a second attack, which is double that of men. Even heart disease symptoms are different for men and women. Men often suffer classic symptoms such as wrenching chest pain and numbness in their left arm, while women can experience pain in their back, chest, abdomen and even jaw. Or they can suffer from shortness of breath or increased fatigue for a long period of time before an actual heart attack.
Yet in spite of these staggering statistics, only 13 percent of women view this deadly disease as a threat.
“Women are getting it worse,” says Dr. Bradley Taylor, a cardiac surgeon at UMPC Passavant. “They’re adopting behaviors that were once primarily men’s behaviors. They’re smoking, experiencing stress and eating poorly.”
Taylor says women are at greater risk for developing heart disease than men and often realize it. Yet most don’t do anything about it until they have a problem. He adds many of his patients are women in their 40s who are frequent business travelers, eating steak every night while entertaining clients and not exercising regularly. “Women today are living the lifestyle my dad lived 30 years ago when we didn’t know any better.”
The good news about heart disease is there are things everyone can do to modify their risk level, such as not smoking, exercising, being cautious of what is on the dinner plate and not eating a fatty diet. And with plaque beginning to form in the arteries as early as the teen years, it’s never too early to start.
Here are the stories of three women and their experience with heart disease.
Elizabeth Hartlep
Elizabeth Hartlep had read many articles about how women who had pain in their throat or neck could be having a heart attack. Yet when she had pain in her throat and neck one night in July 2003, she still did not think it was a heart attack.
“I knew something wasn’t right but I didn’t think it was that,” she says. “I’m the last person I would expect to have a heart attack.”
After all, the fit 66 year old had hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back out with her husband a little more than a year before. And she wasn’t overweight, nor did she have a family history of heart disease. But she soon found that there is no profile for heart disease; all women are at risk.
“I thought I was healthy. But I must have been in trouble, I mean I had a 95 percent blockage that I didn’t know about,” says the Mt. Lebanon resident.
When Hartlep had her attack, she rushed to the hospital and ended up having surgery to put a stint in to open the artery. Once she went back home, she changed her eating habits and increased her already active exercise schedule. And she began attending cardio rehab three times a week, where she walks on a treadmill, rides a stationery bike and climbs a stairmaster.
She says on those days she is lacking motivation to exercise, her rehab group is there to help her continue to do what she knows she has to do in order to stay healthy. The group also comforts her with the fact that she is not the only one to suffer a heart attack, and she is not the only one struggling to stay fit.
A retired architectural secretary, Hartlep says the whole experience has opened her eyes and made her more aware of the decisions she makes each day that affect her health. She knows she is lucky to have survived her attack and she knows what she needs to do to prevent another one. But all of this knowledge and heart-healthy living does not always make her happy.
“I used to go like a house on fire, but now I have days where I’m just not able to keep up with myself. It makes me pretty mad,” she says. But I can do everything I want to. I mean I can’t go sky diving, but I wasn’t going to anyway.”
Beverly Morrow
For two years, Beverly Morrow suffered from chest pains; severe pains right in the middle of her chest. She also experienced occasional shortest of breath. During that time, her family doctor sent her for every possible test including a stress test, MRI and EKG.
“The specialist I went to said all the tests were fine and I was healthy, Morrow says.
Then when she went to her doctor for her yearly physical in October 2002, she was stunned when he looked at her and said “you have to go into the hospital right now.”
Right now? There was no way. She was too busy. She told him she had a lot of social activities coming up and besides, it’s probably just stress anyway. So she made an appointment for a stress test the following week and didn’t give it much thought.
A few days later she was in the shower when the entire left side of her body went totally numb for about 20 seconds.
“I thought it was just stress again, but I was still very scared.”
Morrow, then 60 years old, drove herself to the hospital for her stress test and after the sonogram part, her doctor told her she couldn’t to the treadmill test because she had a 90 percent blockage and needed a cardiac catheterization right away. Again she was stunned by his words, but agreed to the immediate surgery.
After her blockage was revealed to her, she knew she had to make some lifestyle changes; not easy for someone who was not an “exercise person” and had quite a demanding sweet tooth. But after her husband had quadruple bypass surgery in Nov. 2004, after having absolutely no symptoms and no pains, she began taking nutrition classes, eating more nutritiously and slowly found the determination to buckle down.
“I became more conscious of how to eat, and what to eat, “she says.
Morrow and her husband also began walking along the Montour Trail near their Bethel Park home several times a week. And she began attending cardio rehab. While she probably could lived a bit healthier before her heart attack, she knows she must continue to stay active and eat right if she wants to keep playing those bridge games she enjoys so much.
Nancy Koehler
Her mother died from heart disease at age 74. Her grandmother died from it at age 76. Her father was only 49 when heart disease claimed his life, and both of her grandfathers were taken by heart disease at age 35.
Yet when then 72-year-old Nancy Koehler of Upper St. Clair began experiencing symptoms of a heart attack, including a low energy level and shortness of breath, she surprisingly ignored it.
“I blamed it on age or being out of shape. I didn’t want to admit it. I just rationalized it like we all do.”
Then on Nov. 3, 2003 she woke up in the middle of the night with a sharp pain in the middle of her back. She immediately thought about her mother having the same pain before having the heart attack that ended her life. Could it be happening to me, she wondered? No way, thought the nurse and mother of five, and returned to bed.
When she awoke in the morning, she at breakfast, took her medications and became violently ill almost immediately. Her arms soon felt like dead weight, something she knew from her nursing career was a symptom of a heart attack. So she had her husband call an ambulance and when they arrived and they gave her an EKG.
“They told me I was having a heart attack and I said ‘yeah, I know.’”
She was taken in for a double bypass and hoped to have it done before her children found out. But they were on their way to the hospital almost immediately. After all, their dad had bypass surgery 31 years before and they were more than aware of the family history.
Because of his surgery, Koehler had been leading a healthy life. She ate a healthy and nutritious diet and kept her once-high blood pressure in check. And even though she was still younger than her mother and grandmother were when they died from heart disease, she thought she beat it.
“After my heart attack I realized I was no different.”
She says because the symptoms of heart disease in women are so different from those of men, she feels it is often hard for women to realize they are having a heart attack. After all, she had pain in her back and arm as well as nausea, and didn’t take these to be symptoms of heart disease.
“You just have to listen to your body. Your body will tell you when something is wrong. I’m the perfect example that you shouldn’t wait to do something about your health until you have to. If you’re in doubt, you better go and get it checked out.”
