7 Skipped Beats That Could Lead to a Heart Attack

By Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

February is Heart Health Month. If you are a woman, you may be having heart symptoms that seem like something else entirely. Some of you know, but others may not. I almost died from heart issues seventeen years ago. I ignored those symptoms for far too long. By the grace of God, I’m still here.  (Disclaimer – This is my experience and my story. Yours could look entirely different.)

I knew I had high cholesterol levels. They found those in 1997 when I had my gall bladder removed. My surgeon let me know, but he didn’t seem overly concerned. If he sent a report to my regular doctor, they didn’t call me to tell me I should be on meds. Maybe if I had been, I could have avoided the issues I later had. Who knows? It was my responsibility to discuss it with my primary caregiver, but I didn’t. On top of that, I began having migraines always located in my left temple. My jaw hurt like crazy, too.  Except they weren’t migraines. They were my jaw signaling to me that something was wrong with my heart.

Skipped Beat 1

Fast forward to 2004.

We were preparing for the birth of our first granddaughter who turned 17 this past Monday. Life was good. Our boys were doing well. All was right with our world.

During those early months of 2004, I had issues with indigestion. I was popping Rolaids like they were candy. I probably went through a couple of those little packages in a couple of days. I bought them in bulk. That’s how bad it was. I didn’t mention this to my doctor.

Skipped Beat 2

As I’d be doing housework, I began to notice difficulty in simple things, like being out of breath just walking from one side of our home to the other. Other tasks like removing clothes from the dryer were even more difficult. I began to have pains in the center of my chest as I bent over. I thought nothing of it. It was just a little pain that went away. And I was getting older.

Skipped Beat 3

We traveled to northern Virginia for our granddaughter’s birth. It was cold and snow lay on the ground. For us Floridians, it was beautiful, but the cold was horrible. I couldn’t breathe in that cold air. And I was still popping those Rolaids. I didn’t sleep the entire time we were there. I had to prop on pillows just to be able to rest at all. I thought it was indigestion. Again.

Our daughter-in-love went into labor and we hurried to the hospital. The entrance had a slight ramp. Just a tiny one. But I had trouble breathing going up that. Again, I thought it was the cold.

Skipped Beat 4

Piper was born and she was sheer perfection. What a joyous day. Our baby had his own baby. And after having four sons, we were thrilled to finally have a little girl.

Fast forward again to a Sunday afternoon rehearsal in March at a local church. J and I had decided to join a local choral group. The rehearsal was going well until we got to Charles H. H. Parry’s I Was Glad. I’d sung this for years. Knew it well and never had difficulty singing it. This time, I couldn’t breathe. My breath wouldn’t support the high notes ( I was a first soprano singing the highest notes.) I actually had to sit down.

My husband insisted I go to the doctor to find out the reasons. He immediately set me up with a cardiologist. During that test, my left arm and shoulder hurt so much, I thought I’d pass out. Of course, they knew as it showed up on their EKG being done as I walked on the treadmill. But, being terrified, I smiled and said it was fine, didn’t hurt.

Skipped Beat 5

They told me after the test that I needed to go straight to the hospital for a heart cath. I refused.

Skipped Beat 6

When I got home, I phoned a church friend who’d just had this procedure and had done well. I was terrified of going to our local hospital as a friend’s husband had recently had a heart cath there and nearly died from it.

I set up an appointment at a hospital about forty-five minutes from our home. I never made it to that appointment.

The weekend of March 22^nd, I absolutely couldn’t breathe. But I was so terrified, I wouldn’t let J call 911.

Skipped Beat 7

I spent Saturday evening at death’s door. I went all the way through Sunday, getting bluer by the minute. Finally, knowing I was going to die if I didn’t get help, I asked J to drive me to the hospital forty-five minutes away.

By God’s grace and mercy, I made it.

Don’t do that. Call 911. Early. Don’t wait as I did.

Long story short, my LAD, the widow-maker, was 99.9% blocked. If I’d been a man, I likely would have died.

BUT GOD!

He created a tiny little vessel that bypassed the blockage. That alone had kept me alive all that time. To God be the Glory!

They took me right in, immediately gave me four baby aspirin and a Plavix. Put in an IV. Then the hospitalist came by. They scheduled me for the cath the next afternoon.

Yes, I was terrified, but I needn’t have been. They honored my request not to be awake by giving me just a twilight kind of anesthesia. I only woke up at the end to hear the doctor barking orders for a smaller stent. If that hadn’t worked, I would have been wheeled into open-heart surgery. Thanks be to God, the smaller stent worked.

Seventeen years later, I am still here and doing as well as a seventy-one-year-old grandma can. I try to eat right, though I don’t always. We exercise but not as regularly as we should.

If you have any of the following symptoms, whether you are male or female, don’t hesitate to go to the nearest ER. Better yet, call 911.

It could mean the difference between life and death. I’m so thankful to my doctors and to my God for saving my life. He still has things for me to do. By His grace alone, I’m still here.

Soli Deo Gloria.

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https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/warning-signs-of-a-heart-attack/heart-attack-symptoms-in-women

Here is the anthem in which I struggled to breathe. I hope it blesses you.