Good to know - please read .
HEART ATTACK EXPERIENCE
I am an ER nurse and this is the best description of this event that I have ever heard. Please read, pay attention, and send it on! Diane K. in AZ. I was
aware that female heart
attacks are different, but this is the best description I’ve ever read.
Women and heart attacks (Myocardial infarction). 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 & 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 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,
‘A-A-h, this is the life, all 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 it 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 footrest 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 in moment. 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 unlocked the door and 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 stints to hold open my right
coronary artery. I know it sounds like all my thinking and
actions a t 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 stints. ‘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 firsthand.’

1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body not the
usual
men’s symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my stern um 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.’ And if you
can, take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive
yourself to the ER - you are a hazard to others on the road. Do NOT have
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). MIs 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. 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. **Please be
a true friend and send this article to all your friends
(male & female) you care about!**

A study tracking 7,000 people shows that those taking a fish oil capsule
containing Omega 3 fatty acids improves survival prospects for patients
with heart failure.

AHA Scientific Statement

Fish Consumption, Fish Oil, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and Cardiovascular Disease
Penny M. Kris-Etherton, PhD, RD; William S. Harris, PhD; Lawrence J. Appel, MD, MPH, for the Nutrition Committee
A single reprint is available by calling 800-242-8721 (US only) or writing the American Heart Association, Public Information, 7272 Greenville Ave, Dallas, TX 75231-4596. Ask for reprint No. 71-0241. To purchase additional reprints: up to 999 copies, call 800-611-6083 (US only) or fax 413-665-2671; 1000 or more copies, call 410-528-4426, fax 410-528-4264, or e-mail klbradle@lww.com. To make photocopies for personal or educational use, call the Copyright Clearance Center, 978-750-8400.

Key Words: AHA Scientific Statements • nutrition • fatty acids, omega-3 • fish oils • cardiovascular diseases

We work to receive, we give to receive! Labor Day is a day of celebration of our labor. Enjoy these words of wisdom!

The Prophet
Kahil Girbran
On Work

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”

But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

Be happy you can labor, benefit from your labor, help others from your labor. Labor Day in the United States is to celebrate lifes gift, Labor! Peace!