Brittany's Cardiology Story

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- [Brittany] "Go hard or go home" is kind
of a motto that I've always lived by.

You know, I was the task manager.

What am I going to do today?

I'm going to knock this off my list,
this off my list, this off my list.

And I haven't made a to-do
list since August 28th.

I worked from the office on a Wednesday.

I left work and decided to exercise after
work before I started my evening chores

of cooking dinner, and
homework, and bath time.

And I found myself really struggling to
just get through the warmup.

I knew something wasn't quite right.

So, I decided to just rest to give the
workout up for the day and had dinner

with the family, took a shower,
and just started to have a lot

of severe back pain.

I found myself just a bit disoriented
with my breath and just an overall

feeling of sickness.

I started to have neck pain and jaw pain.

Uniquely, those are symptoms
of a heart attack in women.

So, I made my way to the ER,
they took me back almost immediately,

and within 10 minutes had confirmed that
there was definitely something going on.

So, I stayed the night here in La Grange.

When we made it to the cath lab,
Doctor Ummat came in and she talked me

through the process as though it was

the first time she was
explaining it to anyone.

- [Dr. Ummat] Brittany came in with
chest pain, and I think she's a good

example of a patient who has none of the
classic risk factors for heart disease.

- She told me when she was actually
inserting the cath, I asked her if she saw

a blockage, she said, "I absolutely do.

It is completely occluded."

And it seemed to be just a few minutes of
a procedure that obviously saved my life.

I worried a lot about my son, this family,
how am I going to be able to take care

of all of these people that,
you know, really, really rely on me.

You know, the morning after the stent was
placed, the heart cath was done,

Doctor Kemp came to my room
and I just kept asking her, you know,

"Is this the beginning of the end?"

- [Dr, Kemp] It's hard for anyone to be
kind of faced with an event like this,

especially something that could take you
away from your family permanently.

As a mom, that's a big pill to swallow.

So, you have to recognize that
there's going to be a lot of anxiety.

There's going to be a lot of sadness.

There's going to be a lot of why me
and all of these are very,

very, very valid and very
appropriate feelings.

We talked about very close follow-ups and
cardiac rehab and all of these things that

have been shown to help someone recover
emotionally from an event like this.

- Knowing that she said this is normal and
you will get through this and you will be

okay allowed me to just
rebound, you know, very quickly.

- Heart disease is not
just a physical problem.

It affects us in other
ways as well, especially emotionally.

There are certain things we can't change.

We can't change our genes.

We can't change our age.

But we have so many things that are
in our power to change, the way we eat,

the way we exercise.

We have a giant role in our own
health and taking charge, especially

of our heart health.

- I find myself sitting down
and listening to my son tell a story.

And before then I found
myself saying, "Tell me later."

"Hang on."

"Give me a minute."

"Can we talk about it later?"

And until you realize that you may not
have that later, you start to appreciate

it a lot more.

What gets my blood pumping
is this life I'm living.

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