Laura H.

Heart disease is something that I used to never really think much about, but in March of 2009, when I was 40 years old, heart disease found me. I woke up on March 30th, 2009, with classic heart attack symptoms—chest pain that radiated down my left arm and up into my jaw. I felt overheated and nauseated. I don’t smoke, I’m not diabetic and don’t have high blood pressure or clogged arteries. 15 months prior to my heart attack I’d already dropped over 22 pounds. nnInitially they told me that they didn’t think I was having a heart attack: I was the wrong age (40), wrong gender (female), with no family history and no risk factors. It turns out that I’d experienced a rare thing called a spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD). nnI did 12 weeks of cardiac rehab, and 19 months after my heart attack I completed my first triathlon, the Chapel Hill Ramblin’ Rose, on Oct. 9th, 2010. nnI think I survived because I recognized my symptoms, insisted on getting to an ER, and the ER treated me as if I were having a heart attack, even though the initial tests were negative. Since then, I’ve made it my mission to get the word out to other women about heart disease, our #1 killer. And I take Plavix and aspirin regularly.

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