Dreams and Dream Interpretation
My Poetry, Short Stories and more
Ladies, my intention is to scare you. I hope I succeed.
1) Heart disease and heart attacks are the #1 killers of women in America!
2) Over 500,000 women in the US die each year from cardiovascular disease.
3) It claims more lives than breast cancer, diabetes and accidents combined.
4) Women are half as likely to survive their first heart attack.
5) The symptoms of heart attack in women are often different than in men -- making it
more difficult to diagnose and therefore treat.
6) You can have a heart attack and not even know it. About 35% of all heart attacks in
women go unnoticed and unreported.
"Typical" symptoms of a heart attack in both men and women include:
1) Chest pain that can spread through the upper body to the arms, neck, shoulders or
jaw.
2) Pressure in the chest, often described as, "an elephant sitting on it." Either constant or
intermittent.
3) Shortness of breath or shallow breathing.
4) Weak and/or fast pulse.
5) Faintness or dizziness.
6) Sweating, heavy and often cold.
7) Nausea or upset stomach.
"Atypical" symptoms experienced more often by women:
1) A feeling of severe heartburn.
2) Breast pain.
3) Pain in the upper back or jaw with no chest pain.
Sometimes, doctors fail to recognize heart disease in women.
Case in point -- my mother. In July she started feeling ill -- shortness of breath and
general malaise. She went to the doctor who diagnosed bronchitis. He gave her a
prescription for an antibiotic and sent her home. Several weeks later after not feeling
better she returned to the doctor who took a chest x-ray and diagnosed pneumonia. He
gave her another prescription and sent her home. Several weeks later she is feeling
worse. She returns to the doctor. She tells him that she is 72 years old and she has
never felt worse in her life. He tells her to "stop over-dramatizing." He takes another
chest x-ray and advises her that her heart looks a little enlarged and there is still fluid in
the lungs. He sends her to a pulmonologist. The pulmonologist examines her and tells
her that she probably has congestive heart failure and sends her to a cardiologist -- who
sends her for a stress test.
The next morning, she is scheduled for an echocardiogram, but doesn't make it there.
She has severe shortness of breath that will not go away and calls 911. The paramedics
take her to the emergency room. Her cardiologist is there -- who just received the results
of her stress test and was going to call her to come immediately to the hospital. The
stress test revealed that she had at least two major heart attacks in the past. He can't
determine when, but mom had a complete physical in June, including an echocardiogram
that was normal, so we know it was since that time. The next day, she undergoes a
catheterization that reveals 5 blockages in three arteries to the heart -- one is 90%
blocked. She undergoes a triple bypass within a few days. Today, October 5, 2002, she
is still in the hospital slowly recovering -- 3 months since her first visit to the doctor.
Could it happen to you (or me)?
The frightening answer is -- yes. But now we know more than mom did. Now we are
wiser and will question the doctor's diagnosis. Now we will trust our instincts and not rely
on one medical "expert" opinion. Now we will read and learn all there is to know about
heart attacks -- the causes, prevention, symptoms and treatments available. I suggest
you start here: HeartCenterOnline. I hope I have scared you enough to do so. I also
hope that you will never need to know what you learn.
© 2002 Bobbie Ann Pimm
Attack and Stroke, by Judith Zimmer, John P. Cooke
by Thomas Yannios M.D., Thomas A. Yannios
Dreams and Dream Interpretation
My Poetry, Short Stories and more
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