How a Heart Attack Gave Me My Life Back

On a sunny July day in 2009, I set out for a bike ride with friends. That night, I found myself in a hospital bed, watching the cardiologist guide a scope through the femoral artery into my heart. A blood clot in my coronary artery came into view on the screen. “If you hadn’t come in tonight,” he said, “you wouldn’t have woken up tomorrow.” I was 31 years old.

As a physically active triathlete, I should have found that 60-mile bike ride to be no big deal. I had just completed a two-day, 150-mile charity bike ride a couple of weeks earlier. But as I painstakingly climbed the steep grade, I thought, “What is wrong with me today?” I felt lightheaded during the first break. I shrugged it off, thinking I hadn’t eaten enough for breakfast.

As we pressed on, I started to feel indigestion, an unusual occurrence for me. I thought I might not be drinking enough water. I walked my bike up the steepest part of the ride and stopped to hydrate and eat a snack. As I chatted with another rider who had stopped to refill his water bottle, one of my friends came back down the hill to check on me. I got back on the bike, but I still wasn’t feeling well, so I walked again for a bit.

When we finally reached the top, I had more food and water before we began the descent. I felt fine, except for some neck and shoulder pain, which seemed normal after a couple of hours on the bike. We stopped for lunch, then set out to return to my friend Keith’s house.

In the last 10 miles of the ride, I felt pressure in my chest. I kept riding. Not once on that hot July day did I think, “Maybe I’m having a heart attack.” When we got to Keith’s place, I couldn’t get comfortable, and the pressure kept worsening, even as I shifted into various positions, including lying on the floor. I chewed a few Tums and drank a Coke, thinking burping might ease the pressure. When the pressure didn’t subside, Keith finally said, “We’re going to the hospital. Something isn’t right.” Keith was a relatively new coworker, but apparently he was more than that – he was my guardian angel.

It was too late for the clinic, so we went to the emergency room. I reported my symptoms and family history of heart disease, then sat down to wait. As time ticked by in the waiting area’s plastic chairs, I kept saying we could leave, but Keith insisted we stay. Looking back, I wonder whether I would have been brought in right away and whether my heart would have been the first thing they tested if I had been a middle-aged man entering the ER with chest discomfort rather than a young woman.

After about an hour, I was called into a room where they performed an ultrasound of my gallbladder and had me drink a GI cocktail. They told me I would feel better, but I didn’t.

By then, I was frustrated and scared, yet I was still apologizing to the nurses for being sweaty from my bike ride. When the doctor looked at my file and said, “I see you have a family history of heart disease,” tears welled in my eyes. I knew that was it – I was having a heart attack. The doctor noticed my reaction and said, “It’s probably nothing. We just want to run a blood test to be sure.” Turns out, it was something.

My heart was in distress, and the on-call cardiologist was awakened to come in and find out what was happening. I was asked to sign a bunch of paperwork and was prepped for the catheterization laboratory. I didn’t have much time to think, but I was relieved they finally knew what was wrong with me, even if we didn’t have the specifics yet. I was convinced I’d be out of the hospital soon, so I asked my friends to call an ex-boyfriend and have him go to my house to pick up some clean clothes for me.

Next, I called my brother in New Hampshire. By then, it was 3:00 a.m. on the East Coast, and I didn’t want to wake my parents. I told him something was wrong with my heart, but the cardiologist was coming to fix it. Most importantly, “Don’t tell Mom and Dad until I call you back. I don’t want them worrying about me.” I was confident I’d be fine to call him back the next day. I had to be. I couldn’t imagine the alternative.

The cardiologist found a blood clot in my coronary artery. He went to work, breaking up the clot, which was too large to suction out. I eventually fell asleep as he inserted a stent and placed a balloon to help my heart beat for the next 24 hours while it recovered.

Thanks to my friend, who convinced me to go to the hospital, and to the fact that I wasn’t off hiking the Inca Trail with my boyfriend at the time, as I wanted to be, I was in the hospital and alive. As Dr. Sara Szal says, “Your body keeps perfect records. And eventually, it sends a bill. It may come as a cancer diagnosis or a divorce or prediabetes or autoimmune disease.” For me, it came as a heart attack. My heart stepped in to tell me I was moving too fast in the wrong direction.

I spent the next three days in the Intensive Care Unit trying to stabilize my heart and blood pressure as new medications were introduced into my system for the first time. Fortunately, I was healthy enough for my heart to recover. I have some scar tissue, but my heart bounced back.

I’d been given a gift—a forced pause that required me to pay attention to taking care of myself. But I wasn’t ready to stop. Even in the hospital bed for those four days, all I could think about was getting back to work and the ladder I believed I needed to climb to prove to the world I was successful.

A week after my heart attack, I was back at my cubicle, responding to urgent emails, with the catheter bruise on my thigh still yellow. I had built a career in Human Resources, but I wasn’t living an inspired life. At the time, I didn’t know what else to do, so I kept working while exploring other options.

My boyfriend returned from Peru. By then, I was out of the hospital and looked fine, so he couldn’t understand what I had been through. Because I didn’t fit the typical survivor demographic, my doctor didn’t recommend Cardiac Rehabilitation. I was navigating my recovery alone, without a map.

I struggled for months with medications that drove my already low blood pressure even lower and caused dizzy spells. A couple of weeks later, I blacked out while watching a movie at the iconic music venue, Red Rocks Amphitheater. As my boyfriend and his friend helped me to the end of the row, I was annoyed that people in the crowd thought I was drunk. I wondered whether they felt bad about giving me a hard time once they saw the EMTs attending to me. Much to my dismay, I ended up back in the hospital for another night so they could make sure everything was okay with my heart.

After that incident, I finally convinced the doctor to let me come off the beta blockers. I was still on Plavix and aspirin to thin my blood. Fortunately, the tests for a blood-clotting disorder found nothing out of the ordinary. The blood thinners made me bruise so easily that even resting my arm on a hard surface, like my desk, left a bruise. One day, I fell off my bike, and the gear sliced my leg. It was hard to get the bleeding to stop. Fortunately, I had plenty of Band-Aids in my saddle bag. What was originally supposed to be only one year turned into three before I finally convinced my cardiologist to let me stop taking Plavix and rely solely on daily aspirin for the blood-thinning effect.

I was told I’d have to take a statin for the rest of my life, which I found unacceptable. I felt old as I filled my weekly pill box with prescription medications and carried it on vacations. I started doing what I’ve always been good at – research. In 2010, I enrolled in a nutrition course that led to my certification as a Holistic Health Practitioner. Through my training, I realized my diet wasn’t as healthy as I’d thought.

While reading Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure by Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., M.D., I learned I could manage my heart disease with a whole-food, plant-based diet. I asked my cardiologist about it. He told me that since most people won’t change their diet, he doesn’t bring it up. But what about someone like me, who is more than willing to change the way I eat to avoid taking a prescription? If I could keep my Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL) below 60, he agreed I could stop taking the statin.

As I continued digging into the data on heart disease, trying to understand where I went wrong and what I could do to protect my heart in the future, I was surprised to learn that heart disease is the leading cause of death among American women and kills more of us than all types of cancer combined. Like more than half of women in the U.S., I had no idea that heart disease is our biggest health threat. Before my heart attack, I, too, thought heart disease primarily affected older men.

I found out that heart attack symptoms in women differ from those in men. The image of a person clutching their chest might be what you see in the movies, but it is far from reality. Everything I felt during my 60-mile bike ride pointed to a heart attack, from lightheadedness and neck and arm pain to uncomfortable pressure in my chest. Other symptoms of a heart attack in women can include uncomfortable squeezing, fullness, or pain in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes and comes and goes; pain or discomfort in one or both arms, back, or jaw; shortness of breath; cold sweats; and nausea.

While I could go down the list of risk factors and check no to everything else (smoking, being overweight, having high blood pressure, being a Type 2 diabetic, or being physically inactive), it turns out that family history is the biggest risk factor.

My father’s first heart attack went undiagnosed when he was 42. It wasn’t until a couple of years later, when he walked into the emergency room in cardiac arrest, that doctors found the scar tissue and told him he had already had a heart attack. My grandmothers were in their 70s when one experienced a series of small strokes, and the other had a heart blockage that required a stent. Still, I thought I didn’t have to worry until I was much older, and that being physically active would protect me.

I started volunteering with the American Heart Association to share my story, hoping it would prevent another woman from ignoring her symptoms. I was first featured as a survivor at the American Heart Association’s annual Go Red for Women Luncheon in Denver in 2010, and I was featured again a few more times in the years that followed. I’ve spoken to groups, led yoga classes, served on a few committees, testified before the State House Committee in support of a bill to ban trans fats from school lunches, and organized teams for the annual Heart Walk.

Too many people die from heart disease, and I believe we can change that. The good news is that 80% of heart disease is preventable through lifestyle changes. I found my passion – helping others break the cycle of disease and live healthier, happier lives.

When I was offered the chance to move to a more flexible, less stressful job, I took it. My manager tried to talk me out of leaving, but it was time. I needed to get my priorities straight, and that wasn’t fully possible in my current work environment. Over time, it became clear I had made the right decision for me. I began prioritizing my health over the next promotion.

In January 2018, after the company I worked for was acquired by a larger technology firm, I took the leap and left my HR career to focus full-time on my health and wellness business, Firefly Community LLC. By letting go of my identity as an HR professional, I could help more people connect with themselves, others, nature, and food.

My path wasn't always easy, and I found myself slipping back into old habits. However, along the way, I acquired tools and resources that supported not only physical health but also emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. I found ways to reconnect with myself and stay on track.

I still have a lot of work to do, but every day I get a little better at speaking my truth and living in the present. I listen to my body and nourish my physical and spiritual well-being. I’m closer to my authentic self. I look back on the day of my heart attack and say “thank you” for giving me my life back.