When you imagine what it would be like to suffer a heart attack, you probably think about crushing chest pain, the “elephant on your chest” feeling that some people describe.
But in reality, the symptoms are often not that obvious.
Dr. Frank McGeorge shares one survivor’s story that everyone needs to hear.
“I had a heart attack at the age of 41,” said Kelly Sosnowski.
It’s a fact that she still struggles to believe sometimes.
“I didn’t have high blood pressure. I didn’t have high cholesterol. I wasn’t overweight," said Sosnowski. "In hindsight, my symptoms probably started months in advance, I was retaining water but I thought I was gaining a little weight and I didn’t know why.”
It was a Thursday in July when something else caught her attention.
“I took my daughter to softball practice and I ran to the store really quick in between to do an errand and when I was walking I would get a sharp pain and in my upper back and then when I stopped it would go away and I was like ‘hmm that’s odd," said Sosnowski. "I woke up the next morning on Friday and still had that uncomfortable feeling in my chest and back, so I called my doctor.”
Her doctor said it sounded muscular, like she might have pulled something exercising.
“In hindsight, I actually said a little bit tongue in cheek,” said Sosnowski. "My chest is so tight that if I didn’t know better, I’m having a heart attack.”
Her doctor suggested she ice her back, so she did, and it felt better.
“That Friday night I went to bed and I started to feel a terrible pain in my chest and I kept thinking, this is crazy, there’s nothing they can do for this, it’s muscular," said Sosnowski.
When she woke up on Saturday, "I was in the shower and I was washing my hair and when I lift my arms the pain would start to flare up again.”
So she did what she says most moms would do, and went to her son’s baseball tournament. She felt terrible in the 95-degree heat.
“After a full day of baseball, my husband said I just didn’t look good, let’s just go to the hospital.”
At the hospital, they discovered, she was having a heart attack.
There was a 95 percent blockage in her left descending artery, a blockage sometimes referred to as the “widowmaker.”
Doctors opened up her artery and put in a stent.
Her heart has made a full recovery, but it took much longer to recover emotionally.
“I had every standard symptom that I’ve read in a textbook and I ignored them and I was told had I waited one more night I would’ve gone and slept at home and I wouldn’t have woken up,” said Sosnowski.
She hopes sharing her experience will make others act faster...
“If you don’t feel good, go in. Because there is really nothing more important than that. Just because I went to baseball I almost left my children without a mother," said Sosnowski.
Kelly says even when she did get to the hospital, and they asked her to rate her pain on a scale from one to ten, and she said a seven.
Looking back, she says it was a 12 or 13. Fortunately, the doctors quickly realized she was much worse off than she would admit, even to herself.