Carol's congestive heart failure (CHF) testimony 1/28/19

[Music] [Music] Thank You Carol for coming in this morning I have the pleasure of working with you through the heart failure clinic here at South number cardiology and I want you to tell the audience a little bit about your experience of being diagnosed with heart failure and sort of the your transition through the process to recovery and I want you to start with when you when you faint sure so I was at work early in the morning like 8 o'clock in the morning so I got in seven thirty seven o'clock and was talking to a co-worker and all of a sudden just passed out and so they call the ambulance and all of that and even as they were taking me away in the ambulance and when they were talking to me I actually lost vision so when they were talking to me I kept saying no this is a migraine I didn't eat this morning I didn't have anything to eat it's probably just migraine I'm fine and the EMS came and and I'm telling them no don't call the EMS I'm completely fine and the EMS came and took me to the hospital it's not like you didn't had a workup and you were sent home I was because I kept telling them it was a migraine and I convinced them at the hospital that it was just a migraine and promised to see my primary care physician so I basically talked myself out of the hospital a couple days go by and you're still feeling poorly correct and in the meantime I did get a referral to a cardiologist so I called in and gotten a referral here which was nice because I'm feeling bad still and I feel bad for several days and I wait to come to the hospital I wait till the morning because I don't want to inconvenience my husband like your research when was the best time to come into that yes I googled you know unfortunately didn't Google like if you have heart conditions you're supposed to go in right away I didn't Google that I Google when's the best time to go to hospital in the air for days and waited for days and I chalked it up to you know I was getting older I was tired from work I have a lot of stress from work and family and I just thought that's why I wasn't feeling well so you go in early morning yeah and then what happens they immediately you know bring me back start running hard tests and within a few hours they someone from here actually me is in the hospital and they let you know about you were ejection fraction yeah they say they say your ejection fracture is really low you're in heart failure it's a 10 between 10 and 15 percent and and I should say that you know this whole time they're coming in and talking to me and I'm really not absorbing anything that they're saying to me a lot of information well my husband's there and they would leave and he'd say oh gosh what do you think about that and I'd say what do you mean I need to take get some medication and go home and and he'd say no Carol they you know you you your heart is a really bad condition and I just couldn't absorb it I couldn't take it in and and it wasn't till later that I realized that all this information was coming at me and I wasn't able to even comprehend it and it was so it which was upsetting to me later because I never thought that I would be the type of person that wouldn't be able to comprehend what was happening to me but it is possible yeah someone as educated as you and as soon as you it's possible that you won't be able to which is a good thing you had your husband there with you yeah as your advocate yeah No thank God thank you for that so they they eventually said hey you're gonna have to get a pacemaker defibrillator put in and it's we won't let you leave the hospital until you have this device put in and again I didn't absorb that it took a long time a good couple hours probably maybe five hours and I had to wait overnight before they put it in and that hard wait it was a horrible yeah and it was I was scared I was I didn't really understand the procedure so I'm googling the procedure in the hospital which makes me more scared you know there's different types of devices what does that really mean what's it mean an ICD was to mean a defibrillator is that the same thing is a pacemaker different than that I mean I just made you're all important questions right most patients have those very same concerns yeah and so when I and I kept thinking well I just couldn't believe it was happening to me you know this is you know I'm gonna have something in my body for the rest of my life that just it was really hard to come to grips with that and but it was it was so fast like it wasn't like I had time to debate it didn't in considering everyone has that experience yeah whom defibrillators are placed after three months there's fear yours was unique and that you needed it right away yeah so then you get out of the hospital and I first see you here in the transitional heart failure clinic tell me a little bit about your experience here in the clinic um you know at first I was you know I have to say heart failure clinic I was like I hate it's a name just been I hate this name of this and I'm too young to be in a heart failure clinic and but it was really helpful for me to come in and come in as often as I did so you set it up so the first month it was almost every week I came in and it was helpful because I had a lot of questions and I was struggling with just dealing with it having to slow down take off time from work so I had time to come do it get the medication titrated which was really for me was the most difficult part and then knowing that somebody was looking at the scar and looking to see that it was healing right that meant a lot to me and that every week if if I wasn't feeling good still I could ask the questions if we could change the medication as needed until I was feeling good and then talk about all the other things that go along with heart failure the eating the oh I can't have salt anymore I mean I was like such a salt addict that that was shocking to me in the meeting with a dietitian here that was helpful setting me up with cardio rehab which was also really helpful because it more so than working out it was the having other people around that had a similar heart condition and then knowing that I mean I knew I you know and you intellectually I'm not the only person in the world but it did feel a lot better to have other people to say oh god we hate those beautiful artists or whatever it is like so it was nice to the gym that you could relate to people right yeah and I wasn't embarrassed to go like I would have been plus I was scared I was really scared to work out I had the exercise physiologist there right there you know your monitor so it's a safe environment exactly yeah and I was it gave me a lot of comfort because I was so I would have been scared to get on a treadmill before that because I just didn't know what my heart was gonna do and I was scared of the defibrillator I've I was scared the defibrillator blur until it's been a year and a half almost two years now I've had it and I want to say except for the last six months I've been scared of this defibrillator I'm scared to walk by microwave sometimes I'm scared that I put my phone too close to it and I understand I've done all the research it's not gonna effect that if you're not but there's something in me that goes oh you know is or am I going to get a shock if I go through TSA at the airport which I travel a lot for work so I'm in the airport like three times a month I'm going through the third security gate and so that's another thing I've had to sort of it sounds like you've come to have some peace with that yes yeah I have no problem with it whatsoever I have no problem with just walking right you know I just go through and I don't feel like I have to explain or show my card anymore so there's a big difference between that the first month of the implant and a year out yeah and and you will get used to it you will have less fear and so then that's a big hurdle for a patient to get over yeah and that first the first month was really hard I've not never been someone who has depression issues in that first month I I found myself that first two weeks even just crying uncontrollably and a very normal for depression on your first visit here at that transitional herculeo clinic and we do find a lot of depression and we do find that it gets better yeah when you exit the clinic yeah and it did it was a remarkably de better that was difficult I have a child at home you can tell was that family you know um my family was great as most great through it but it was also hard for them to have somebody I mean I'm always the one that takes care of everything at home I'm the mom so I do all the meals I do all the planning and they have to get to and I was so nervous about putting this on my child like how is this going to affect her in high school in school and so you don't want to tell them too much I mean if they obviously they're living with you and they know what's going on but you know I didn't want to share so many feelings with her too I didn't want to put my feelings out onto her and so that was a balancing act that we had to and it was definitely a balancing with my husband as well I mean he you know he felt very tender also you know how was I doing calling home you know 10 times a day are you okay and then being annoyed and being asked out how am i yeah 10 times day you know so we definitely worked it out but it was certainly uh and now fast forward here you are ejection fraction is 55 percent yeah so that's a huge success and is there any advice that you might have for other women particularly women when they do receive the diagnosis of heart failure and I think in on the on the topic of hope yeah you know it's not it's really not it's just now part of your life but it's not it doesn't define you I think for women you know I you know I went through a period of well with my husband gonna find me still attractive you know I have this device in my chest and it's personal but you know and it isn't like that at all but I certainly all those fears in the back of your head you know you try to I think as a woman you have this I need to be perfect you know I need to be superwoman I need to be perfect at home perfect at work and and then it perfect right so I think but you know a couple years later and you just it's like I'm a totally different person than effect actually I feel better now then I had four previous years up into the heart failure and I would say the one thing I did learn is not taking nor symptoms because I ignored them for a very long time probably a year I ignore my symptoms and did nothing about them because I thought it was stress for more stress from I just chalked it up to being getting older you know and instead of saying oh wait you know it's harder to get up the stairs and it's you know I feel like I want to go to bed at 6:30 at night and why is that and why am I you know gaining all this weight which turns out later to be water but I didn't I didn't add any of those things up and I'm I'm just very common that's why were you see patients who have you know 30 pounds of water weight they didn't in their terribly short of breath so it's a very common problem thing and I didn't have those symptoms like you think what you think of heart you think oh you're gonna get this pain in your chest and I didn't have that I just had like I did have some pain in my arm which of course I don't even know what I like that it's a pain in my arm and I had little start you know I just definitely felt horrible he's very common and I did have a furnace of breath and I had this feeling of dread but before I went to the hospital one of the reasons I went in I suppose I had this feeling of dread and then I finally said okay I have to listen to that and I think I mentioned to earlier at 3 o'clock in the morning before I went to that but I was watching a Rosie O'Donnell special and she was giving the symptoms and I was thinking oh I haven't syndrome and oh I have that symptom and and so that actually is what spurred me convinced me really to go to the spa because I probably would have just in that scary I would have just stayed in bad and I would have would have happened yeah so well a huge success yeah both for the clinic and having you with us and doing so well and for you and your life your family so I appreciate you coming out today and best of luck oh you're so welcome Paul thank you for having me you bet all right [Music]

Channel: South Denver Cardiology

Views: 24,723

Keywords: CHF, Congestive heart failure, heart failure, heart disease, heart disease in women, women's heart health, heart health, south denver cardiology associates, women

Id: wr9-Rcgsco8

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 04 2019