Important advice for women.......

This is an email from a niece who is a nurse......it could save your life......please read..........................

> This is an amazing story. a woman just passed away
> recently with a heart
> attack. She said she didn't feel well and had a
> backache and was going
> to lay down on the bed with the heating pad. A while
> later her husband
> went to check on her and she was not breathing. They
> were not able to
> revive her. This is something we women should
> definitely take seriously.
> Please pass this on to those you love.
>
> I was aware that female heart attacks are different,
> but this is the
> best description I've ever read on Women and heart
> attacks - Myocardial
> infarction (MI).
>
> Did you know that women rarely have the same
> dramatic symptoms that men
> have when experiencing heart attack...you know, the
> sudden stabbing pain
> in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest and
> dropping to the
> floor that we see in the movies. Here is the story
> of one woman's
> experience with a heart attack:
>
> 'I had a completely unexpected heart attack at about
> 10:30 pm with NO
> prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one
> would suspect
> might've brought it on. I was sitting all snugly &
> warm on a cold
> evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an
> interesting story my
> friend had sent me, and actually thinking, 'Aah,
> this is the life, cozy
> and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet
> propped up.'
>
> A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of
> indigestion, when you've
> been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and
> washed it down with a
> dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel
> like you've swallowed
> a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion
> and it is most
> uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn't have gulped
> it down so fast and
> needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time
> drink a glass of water
> to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was
> my initial
> sensation---the only trouble was that I hadn't taken
> a bite of anything
> since about 5:00 p.m.
>
> 'After that had seemed to subside, the next
> sensation was like little
> squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my
> SPINE (hind-sight, it
> was probably my aorta spasming), gaining speed as
> they continued racing
> up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one
> presses rhythmically
> when administering CPR). This fascinating process
> continued on into my
> throat and branched out into both jaws.
>
> 'AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was
> happening--we all have read
> and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the
> signals of an MI
> happening, haven't we? I said aloud to myself and
> the cat, 'Dear God, I
> think I'm having a heart attack !' I lowered the
> foot rest, dumping the
> cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on
> the floor instead. I
> thought to myself 'If this is a heart attack, I
> shouldn't be walking
> into the next room where the phone is or anywhere
> else.....but, on the
> other hand, if I don't, nobody will know that I need
> help, and if I wait
> any longer I may not be able to get up. I pulled
> myself up with the arms
> of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and
> dialed the
> Paramedics. I told her I thought I was having a
> heart attack due to the
> pressure building under the sternum and radiating
> into my jaws. I didn't
> feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts.
> She said she was
> sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if
> the front door was
> near to me, and if so, to unbolt the door and then
> lie down on the floor
> where they could see me when they came in. 'I then
> laid down on the
> floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I
> don't remember the
> medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto
> a gurney or getting
> me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they
> made to St. Jude ER on
> the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived
> and saw that the
> Cardiologist was already there in his surgical blues
> and cap, helping
> the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance.
> He was bending over
> me asking questions (probably something like 'Have
> you taken any
> medications?') but I couldn't make my mind interpret
> what he was saying,
> or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking
> up until the
> Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the
> teeny angiogram
> balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into
> my heart where they
> installed 2 side by side stents to hold open my
> right coronary artery.
>
> I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at
> home must have
> taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the
> Paramedics, but actually
> it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and
> both the fire station
> and St Jude are only minutes away from my home, and
> my Cardiologist was
> already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going
> on restarting my
> heart (which had stopped somewhere between my
> arrival and the procedure)
> and installing the stents.
>
> 'Why have I written all of this to you with so much
> detail? Because I
> want all of you who are so important in my life to
> know what I learned
> first hand.':
>
> 1. Be aware that something very different is
> happening in your body
> not the usual men's symptoms, but inexplicable
> things happening (until
> my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said
> that many more women
> than men die of their first (and last) MI because
> they didn't know they
> were having one, and commonly mistake it as
> indigestion, take some
> Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation, and go
> to bed, hoping
> they'll feel better in the morning when they wake
> up...which doesn't
> happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not
> be exactly like
> mine,so I advise you to call the Paramedics if
> ANYTHING is unpleasantly
> happening that you've not felt before. It is better
> to have a 'false
> alarm' visitation than to risk your life guessing
> what it might be!
>
> 2. Note that I said 'Call the Paramedics'. Ladies,
> TIME IS OF THE
> ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the
> ER--you're a hazard to
> others on the road, and so is your panicked husband
> who will be speeding
> and looking anxiously at what's happening with you
> instead of the road.
> Do NOT call your doctor--he doesn't know where you
> live and if it's at
> night you won't reach him anyway, and if it's
> daytime, his assistants
> (or answering service) will tell you to call the
> Paramedics. He doesn't
> carry the equipment in his car that you need to be
> saved! The Paramedics
> do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr.
> will be notified
> later.
>
> 3. Don't assume it couldn't be a heart attack
> because you have a
> normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered
> that a cholesterol
> elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI
> (unless it's unbelievably
> high, and/or accompanied by high blood pressure.)
> MI's are usually
> caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the
> body, which dumps all
> sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge
> things up in there.
> Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep.
> Let's be careful and be
> aware. The more we know, the better chance we could
> survive.
>
> 4. A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this
> mail sends it to 10
> people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one
> life.












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