Heart Song

Take It to Heart: The Real Deal On Women and Heart Disease
by Pamela Serure

(Page 2 of 2)

CATHY A., Atlanta, Georgia

I had my first heart attack at thirty-nine. It was just a hairlike tertiary artery, so I basically ignored it. Told myself it was no big deal. Then at forty-two, I had a massive heart attack. I flatlined thirteen times in two and a half hours. No one in Georgia had ever seen anything like it before. All my major arteries went at once.

The night of my massive heart attack was Tuesday, April 12, 1998. I should've been smarter. I should've known better. Not only had I suffered one heart attack already but I was a rehab nurse at the hospital, so I worked with heart attack and stroke patients all the time. But all I did that night when I started having chest pains was call my mom. I didn't do anything else until 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, when the big pains hit and I started sweating from places I didn't know it was possible to sweat from. That's when I finally went to the hospital.

You know how sometimes you're watching a movie and it fades to black? I was sitting on the gurney, and I did that. Last thing I thought before I flatlined was, I'm screwed. I knew I was dying. There was no way I could hurt the way I hurt and survive. I was panicking. I was telling the nurses I worked with, people who knew me, "I'm dying! I'm dying! I'm dying!" They kept saying, "Calm down." I said, "I'm dead." Then I was gone, down for the count. It was a horrific situation. Every time I came back, I'd start talking as if I was having normal conversation, but then I'd flatline again. After six or seven times, they usually let you go. But my friend Darlene, who was working on me, said, "She's fighting, so we have to fight, too." I was lucky to be at a hospital where the nurses were my friends. So the doctors kept going.

When I woke up seventeen hours later in the ICU, I thought I was dead. I heard a funny noise and wondered why it was so dark. I thought, What? I didn't make it to heaven? I could feel my consciousness trying to wrap itself around the trauma. But then as the fog began to fade, I started thinking, Wow, I'm alive? I was amazed, as were all the nurses.

I put 99 percent of the blame for my heart disease squarely on my own shoulders. I'd spent many years smoking, starting when I was seventeen. Even when I had that minor heart attack at thirty-nine, I quit for only a year, and then I started smoking again. I was also a heavy pot smoker. I drank a lot. I was overweight. I didn't exercise other than to get up to go to the fridge. I didn't have enough respect for myself to pay attention to the gravity of cardiovascular disease. I knew all about heart disease because I worked with people who had it. Yet still I'd say, "I'll drink and smoke till the day I die." And I was true to my word, because I did die, but I was resurrected. The doctors said, "We don't know why you're here." I said, "You know you're in trouble when you go to heaven thirteen times and they put up a sign that says 'Do not disturb.' You know God's got some greater mission for you to accomplish in life."

Since waking up from my heart surgery that day, I've taken my medicine, changed my diet, quit smoking and drinking, and started exercising. I was horrified to know that I had really killed myself.

But I still had battles to fight in this war. After the triple bypass, I did well for about two months, and then I started having trouble again. I'd hurt real bad from angina when I lay down at night, and it would wake me up in the morning. I told my doctors, "Something is wrong." But you know, I'm afraid that when male doctors in particular see a woman coming in time and again for the same problems, they say, "Oh, you're just having anxiety. You're making it up." I kept saying, "Bull. You really need to listen to me."

Let me tell you something that I find incredible, so that women who read this will never, ever let their doctors dismiss them again. On the Friday night before my third heart attack, I told the doctor that I wasn't feeling well. He kept me overnight on an IV drip. On June 11, the following day, another doctor came in and said, "I really haven't read your case file, because it's too thick and I don't have time, but I don't see anything indicating that you're having heart problems." I'd thrown up, which is a classic symptom for women. I had a headache. But he said, "I don't see anything. I really think we've got a case of hypochondria here. I'm sending you home." I said, "Something is wrong." He said, "I don't see anything that indicates that." When the nurse came in to disconnect me from the IV, she said, "The doctor wrote an order for you to go home. If you don't leave, your insurance won't pay for it." So I left. I was furious. I said, "I'll be back."

The very next day, June 12, I told my husband to take me to the hospital. I was really hurting. I couldn't manage with the sublingual nitroglycerin. As soon as the doctor ran the EKG, he was barking orders like an army sergeant. The doctor from the day before walked in and started screaming about how I was a hypochondriac and got sent home. But the ER doc said, "Come look at this." He showed him my EKG. Then they both started calling for a cardiac ambulance to take me to a bigger hospital. When I got there, they said, "Gee, we're sorry, but you've had another heart attack." All that first doctor had to do was keep me in the hospital for another twenty-four hours of observation, but he'd dismissed me because I was a woman. He thought I was being stupid or overreacting, so he sent me home.

My husband and I were furious. My body was going to do what it did, and I take responsibility for my heart disease. But when that doctor dismissed me, I was off-the-charts angry. Arrogant doctors think they know more about us than we do! When I got back to that hospital, I said to the doctor who'd told me I was a hypochondriac, "You're fired."

Luckily, God still wanted me around. I survived my third heart attack and more. In December of 1998, one of the arteries they bypassed closed, and I was on the edge of a fourth heart attack. The doctors put a stent in, then another. They said, "You're going to continue to have cardiac episodes like this until your heart stops. We don't believe you'll live another year." They sent me to a psychiatrist to help me deal with dying. I said, "Are you God? I don't need help dying! I've already done that a couple of times. I need help living." I told him to leave. God didn't put me through all this in order to die; I knew that much.

In March 1999, I started chelation. I'd been consuming one hundred milligrams of nitroglycerin sublingually per week and I couldn't walk to the bathroom without hurting. But after a year of chelation and a regimen of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, and coenzyme Q10, I wasn't even taking nitroglycerin. I was cleaning my house, vacuuming, sweeping, and taking showers without fear of keeling over. I even got a part-time job. I'm fifty years old now and I plan on sticking around for a long time to come.

I have to take responsibility for the fact that I have these heart problems because of my own behavior. But I have two children, lots of friends, and lots of things I want to do. And I don't want to go yet. So I had to find a way to love myself, to fight to stay here. That meant accepting certain things: No, you don't drink, you don't get high, and you don't smoke, because you like breathing a whole lot more. I had to empower myself to live. This is my choice, my destiny. Choice is the word. It's your choice. Some people tell me that sounds hard. Well, how much harder is it to leave your kids behind?

Copyright © 2006 by Pamela Serure. Excerpted by permission of Morgan Road Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Pamela Serure has devoted her life to getting the word out on women and heart disease. In the past,she developed the concept for Get Juiced and consulted with over 2,000 clients on how to achieve balance in their lives. She is the author of The 3-Day Energy Fast and its revised edition, 3 Days to Vitality. Prior to Get Juiced, she did marketing and product development her own company, Just Kidding, and Kids USA and consulted for the Donna Karan Company and Starbucks, as well as licensing for many fashion brands. She also conducts workshops and retreats for women in the areas of emotional and spiritual growth. She lives in New York City.