Journey from a broken heart

My name is Carly. I am twenty-five years old and live in the Kansas City area. I like to think that I lead a pretty typical twenty-something lifestyle. I work in a jewelry store and handle a lot of the marketing and web stuff as well as work customer service. I have been with my boyfriend Jason, for about 4 and a half years and we live together with our dog Sandi.

I love to read, write, see movies, listen to music, and spend lots of time socializing with friends and family.

I also love food. I have felt like it controlled a portion of my life for a long time now. We joke at work that our most difficult decision of the day is deciding what to eat for lunch.

On February 3, 2012, my entire life was changed when I had a heart attack.

Here is my story...

When i was around 13, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome and insulin resistance. I was warned that this would increase my chances of heart disease and I needed to eat healthy and exercise to prevent further problems from these diseases. For a (short) while, I tried to eat healthy and lead a healthy lifestyle, but being a teenager took over. Even though I almost felt guilty after eating, I ate what I wanted, and rarely exercised. All of my friends and family have always teased about my love of chicken fingers. I ordered them almost everywhere I went, (Longhorn has the best in my opinion, I was in fact a connoisseur of chicken fingers) and we ate out a lot!

I often thought and worried about my health and as I got older, developed a lot of anxiety with my worries. However, food always won. After some meals, I would feel guilty and worry myself sick with anxiety about what could happen to me.

I have a family history filled with heart disease. My grandfather has had a stent put in, my grandmother triple bypass surgery. My Mom had a stent put it about six years ago, my uncle passed away from heart disease, and my grandmother on my father's side had a heart attack just a few weeks before me.

Knowing all of this only increased my anxiety. I hate thinking about it. I don't like medical shows, ignore billboards and ads for health related things, and hate hearing about anything medical related. Several years ago, I attended a Go Red for Women event while working at Macy's. The speaker was a young woman who had experienced either a heart attack or stroke, and I actually found an excuse to get up and leave during her speech because it scared me so much.

Despite all of this, and my constant worrying, like I said, food always won. I was even scared to exercise (or so I told myself), but I couldn't seem to get a grip on my life and weight. I refuse to share my feelings with anyone and would blow off my mother every time she expressed worry or concern about my lifestyle.

I think for awhile I have known that something was not right, but was always too scared to bring it up to a doctor, for the fact that they might confirm my suspicions. I would occasionally experience chest pain, but it was fleeting and quick and I would always attribute it to anxiety or stress. I had an excuse for anything I ever felt. I would tire quickly, and could sleep in well past my alarm on a daily basis (I don't even have to be at work until 9:30). There were several times I got overheated to the point of feeling like I was going to pass out. I was always embarrassed when these attacks occurred but attributed them once again to anxiety. The anxiety is not gone, but I think once I continue on my heart health journey, I will see how many of these things were probably more related to being unhealthy.

I was always thinking about what I was going to eat next. When I was alone, I could go and get whatever takeout I wanted. I ate out numerous times a week whether socializing with a friend, or grabbing food for my boyfriend and I because I didn't want to cook. Every meal had to be delicious, had to be what I was craving.

So, on Friday, February 3, 2012, it all came crashing down. As the doctor put it, the bomb went off.

Thursday night, I attended a comedy show at the Sprint Center (Jeff Dunham was hilarious). I got home shortly before midnight and felt like I had an upset stomach. I went to bed and fell asleep quickly. Around 2:00AM I woke up feeling like I was going to be sick. As soon as I got up anxiety hit. I was hot from head to toe and felt like my legs were turning to jelly. I jumped back in bed and woke up my boyfriend, who got my some cold towels for my head. I calmed down shortly and fell back asleep. I woke up again about 4:00am this time with a blinding pain in between my shoulder blades. It hurt through to my chest and I began freaking out. I woke Jason up who told me to breathe and try to relax. He rubbed my back for me, but no matter what he did it continued to hurt no matter where I laid. I thought I was having bad indigestion so I took an acid pill and some ibuprofen. I gave myself 15 minutes to see if the pain relaxed then I was going to go to the hospital. One hour later, I was still in pain. I kept thinking it would go away but it didn't. Poor Jason was rubbing my back and doing whatever he could to ease my pain. For a brief moment, I thought I was feeling better and decided to shower for work. By the end of the shower, I was in enough pain I knew I had to go to the hospital.

Jason took me to the ER, even when I got there, I almost had him turn around and take me home. But I thought, no I am here. I am sure I am fine, but it won't hurt to have a doctor tell me so. They took their time getting me to a room and then a doctor came and saw me. I explained my symptoms and he told me it was most likely muscular pain from sleeping weird but since I was there they would give me an EKG. The nurse came in with vicodin and immediately after swallowing I began vomiting. Jason thought for sure after that I would feel better and that everything was okay.

Then they did the EKG....

The EKG technician, definitely could have used a better poker face. After doing the EKG she looked like she was going to cry. She ran out of the room and I heard a doctor tell her to do another one in ten minutes. Apparently, they decided that was not going to work. I was immediately moved closer to the nurse's station and they began hooking me up to all kinds of monitors. They put a defibrillator in my bed and I started to panic. Luckily, I had Jason by my side, but I told him he better get my mommy there now! They told me I was having a heart attack and needed to get me to a cath lab as quickly as possible. I was wheeled to do a MRI and immediately to the Cath lab. My Mom got there, right before I went in and that was the only time I cried. I didn't have enough time to think of all the options.

The nurses and doctors were great. I was awake the entire time, although they did give me a "cocktail" to calm me down. :) I laid on the table, for I don't know how long, just praying that God would let me make it through and to recover from this. I spent the next day and a half in the icu, was moved to a regular room, and released on Sunday.

My heart attack was caused by a 50% blockage in my right coronary artery. The plaque actually burst, and had I not gone to the hospital, could have continued to burst, which could have caused my artery to burst. I now have two stents in that artery. Luckily, there was no damage to my heart muscle from the attack.

So, since the bomb went off, I have a lot of lifestyle changes to make. Diet, exercise, and staying healthy. I am on a restricted diet and will attend a cardiac rehab to begin exercising and losing weight. God gave me exactly needed to shake out of my food addiction and change my life.

All I want to do is live. I want to marry my boyfriend, buy a house, raise a family someday, and live a long healthy life. That is winning out over anything I could eat.

I will continue to post about my difficulties in changing, I know it is a long road ahead. Part of me feels ashamed that I let my life get to the point of this happening, and is embarrassed to talk about my struggles with weight and food. At the same time, if I can help even 1 person and let people realize that we are never too young and to pay attention to your body, then its worth it. It happened, and now all I can do is change.

Don't ever ignore your gut or your symptoms. Finally paying attention saved my life, and probably could have been prevented even earlier.

So the journey to fix a broken heart begins...