My origin story: I was born Oct. 3, 1955, in Burnaby, BC, where I attended elementary and secondary school, and studied for 1.5 years at Simon Fraser University. In 1976, I enrolled at Carleton University in Ottawa, graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism degree (1979). I returned to BC, worked as a newspaper reporter, and married my husband, Rod, in 1986; we have a son and a daughter. Rod’s job with the RCMP has taken us from North Vancouver to Whitehorse, Gabriola Island, Maple Ridge, Ottawa, and Prince George. We retired to Ladysmith in 2015. In 2023, we moved to Nanaimo.

My age: I’m 69 but most days I feel 55.

Occupation: I worked as a journalist before moving into the communications field working for a non-profit municipal organization, and a health authority. Now semi-retired, I do occasional remote communications assignments.

My heart health story

Heart disease runs in my family so I shouldn’t have been surprised when it finally happened to me. I’d been taking blood pressure medication since 2004 – age 49 – but I’d had no other cardiovascular issues. It wasn’t until the evening of Wednesday, November 5, 2014, as I was walking with Rod up a hill near our Prince George home that I suddenly experienced shortness of breath. I stopped for a few minutes, but I never thought anything of it.

The next night, at my Zumba class, I felt myself perspiring more than usual. Again, I didn’t worry about it. Then on Friday morning at work, I felt a sudden tightness in my chest and found it hard to breathe. I drank some water in the office kitchen and the tightness went away.

I felt fine for the rest of the day. After work, my husband and I went out for Mexican food then did some shopping. Around 10 pm, while getting ready for bed, I started to feel flushed. I took my blood pressure and discovered it was sky high – around 190/100. Rod thought I might be stressed about work or other things and urged me to try to sleep. It took awhile, but I eventually slept. We never thought of calling 911.

Then, around 4:30 am, I woke up with a tightness in my chest. This time, I went down to our family room and tried to breathe deeply. I couldn’t. It literally felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I rushed up to our bedroom, woke Rod and said, “You’d better get me to the hospital. I’m feeling worse and I can’t breathe properly.”

We both got dressed, but not once did I think of taking an aspirin – or calling an ambulance.

No angiograms in northern BC

Miraculously, it wasn’t busy when we arrived at the University Hospital of Northern BC (UHNBC) on Saturday, Nov. 8. The Admissions clerk checked me in, gave me an aspirin, and had me lie down in an Emergency bay just off the waiting room. An ER doctor appeared, asked me questions, then sent me for a chest X-ray. The X-ray showed I’d had a heart attack and the doctor told me that I needed to have an angiogram to check for blockages.

But there was a catch: procedures like angiograms and angioplasties couldn’t be done in northern BC hospitals because, at that time, they were not equipped with cardiac catheterization labs.

I was moved to the ER department, put in a bed, and hooked up to receive IV fluids. Rod and I then had to decide at which BC hospital we wanted my angiogram to be performed: in Vancouver, Victoria, or Kelowna. We chose Vancouver, because our daughter lived in Burnaby and Rod could stay with her while I was in hospital – however long that might be.

Another catch? My transfer to Vancouver all hinged on the availability of one of the air ambulances used to airlift patients around BC.

Waiting to be airlifted

Throughout the day, I remained hooked up to IVs and was given clot busters and pain medication. Rod phoned each of our grown kids (Hilary in Burnaby and Trevor in Regina) and I talked to them briefly, trying to reassure them I was okay. Rod called my sister Alice in Nanaimo, asking her to be the point person for the rest of the family. My sister Theresa called from Vernon and convinced an ER nurse to let me talk to her. “Joanne, how did this happen?” she asked. She, along with our families and friends, was stunned to hear that an active, slim, non-smoking 59-year-old like me had had a heart attack.

In the late afternoon, the ER doctor told us that he’d advised BC Emergency Health Services that it was a “matter of life or limb” for me and I needed to be airlifted to Vancouver for the angiogram.

By 11 pm that night, I, along with two paramedics, was at the Prince George airport boarding a plane for Vancouver. Rod, meanwhile, had to jump in his car and drive 10 hours to Vancouver. He wasn’t allowed to come on the plane and, besides, we needed his car to get home from Vancouver after the heart procedure.

Surreal experience

The plane ride was surreal. I was strapped onto a gurney, looking out the window at beautiful snowy mountains and, thanks to all the medication I’d been given that day, felt like I was floating in the clouds. Yet I clearly remember thinking, “How much is this airlift costing?” and “Thank God for universal health care!”

Before I knew it, I was being wheeled into the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) at Vancouver General Hospital. It was after midnight and our daughter Hilary was there to greet me. We hugged and cried and were then ordered by the attending nurse to get some sleep. I was wheeled into a small room; the nurse set Hilary up with a blanket and pillow in an empty room nearby.

Two stents needed

The next morning, Sunday, Nov. 9, Rod arrived in Vancouver, and he, Hilary, and our son’s girlfriend Lilian (now our daughter-in-law) came to visit me. Around noon, they were shooed out and I was taken to have the angiogram.

The surgeon, Dr. Jacqueline Saw, urged me to stay awake during the procedure – “Joanne, wake up! I want you to see this!” – directing me to look at the computers beside my bed. Dr. Saw inserted two stents in my left anterior descending artery to open one blockage of 100 per cent and a second blockage of 80 per cent. A nurse leaned down and told me, “Now, you’ll have a lot more energy!”

I spent three days in the CCU and was repeatedly reminded by doctors that I’d had “a major heart attack.” I talked to my son Trevor by phone, reassuring him I was fine. My sister Alice jumped on a ferry from Nanaimo and came to see me. My older sisters Arlene (Ladysmith) and Theresa (Vernon) phoned to check on me. Hilary and Rod came to the hospital daily, walking with me around the ward.

I was discharged early Wednesday, and Rod and I drove home to Prince George, armed with heart medications for the road, and a list of prescriptions that I’d be taking for the rest of my life.

As we drove, I kept thinking, “If my arteries were so badly blocked, why didn’t I die? Was it not my time to go?” That night at home, I told Rod that I just wanted to get healthy and live to see any grandchildren that we might have.

Continuing heart issues

I returned to work two months after my heart attack and resumed as normal a life as possible, trying not to exert myself at work or through exercise.

Unfortunately, there was no cardiac rehab program in Prince George at the time. So, when my internist told me three months after my heart attack that I could resume exercising, I was pretty much on my own trying to figure out how to get back into shape.

A few months later, in June 2015, we retired and moved to Ladysmith to be closer to family. I immediately began looking for a new doctor to ensure I had continuity of care for my heart condition. Thankfully, a medical clinic in Nanaimo accepted me as a patient in their resident program, which means I see a rotating team of new doctors on the cutting edge of medicine.

The GPs referred me to a Nanaimo internist, Dr. Nazli Baradaran who, over the next couple of years, monitored my ejection fraction (EF) – the percentage of blood that’s pumped out of the heart with each heartbeat. She noted that my EF had slowly declined to 25 per cent after my 2014 heart attack - a normal heart's EF is between 50 and 70 percent. And I often experienced what I called my “low blood pressure days,” when I felt faint for short periods of time.

Dr. Baradaran sent me for an echocardiogram, a MIBI test, and a cardiac MRI, preparing me that I might need to get an “implantable device” to improve my heart function.

On the path to a heart device

In May 2018, she referred me to Dr. Imad Nadra, a Victoria cardiologist. He adjusted my heart medications, replacing one with Entresto, a drug that treats heart failure in patients like me whose heart has been significantly damaged by a heart attack and who have a reduced EF.

When an echocardiogram in October 2018 later showed that my EF had still not improved, Dr. Nadra then referred me to Dr. Chris Lane, an electrophysiologist, to talk about getting a heart device. I was initially hesitant, but Dr. Lane convinced me that, although I was young at age 63 to be getting a device, I should agree to it because, as he said, it could save my life.

CRT-D improves health

Dr. Lane implanted a cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) in my chest, just below my collarbone, on March 26, 2019, at Royal Jubilee Hospital. Our son Trevor travelled to Victoria to support me and Rod that day. The CRT-D synchronizes the pumping action of both sides of my heart and, although I’ve never experienced atrial fibrillation, it’ll jolt my heart back into rhythm if it does go out of whack. A nurse technician at the Jubilee’s Pacemaker Clinic described it as having “a little ambulance” in my chest.

Best of all, an echocardiogram I had in September 2020 showed that thanks to my medications and the CRT-D, my EF has improved to 45 per cent. My heart’s synchronized pumping action is now providing improved blood and oxygen flow to my body and brain.

I’ve slowly but surely felt stronger and more energetic ever since I received the CRT-D.

Being your own advocate

As the youngest of four sisters, I was the first sibling to develop heart disease. Our parents died in their early 70s from heart attacks and, sadly, we lost our oldest sister in 2017 when she passed away at age 69 from an aortic dissection.

But rather than get depressed about my family history, it’s motivated me to deal with my heart issues with a proactive, positive attitude because I want to live a longer, healthier life. I’ll never know exactly why I developed blockages that led to my 2014 heart attack – although doctors have told me that genetics and life’s various stresses all probably contributed. But being fully aware of my heart condition means I can try to prevent a second attack.

In fact, ever since my heart attack, I’ve become a strong health care advocate for myself. I take my heart medications regularly, show up for any tests my doctors schedule, walk or exercise every single day, try to eat a healthy diet, and monitor my blood pressure.

And, I’ll admit, I continually research heart health issues. It adds to my peace of mind to learn new information from legitimate sources that tell me that even with a heart condition, I can still live a healthy life if I’m willing to work at it.

And I’ve also urged our son and daughter - who thankfully are both very health conscious - to monitor their blood pressure and to discuss any health issues with their doctors if need be. We can never forget that heart disease runs in our family.

What are the benefits of belonging to the Nanaimo Heart Sisters?

I have a close family and I’m very lucky they’ve always been extremely supportive of me when it comes to my health. But I can also thank the Nanaimo Heart Sisters for helping me maintain a positive outlook. I heard about the group when I started volunteering at the Heart & Stroke Foundation in Nanaimo in 2016. I contacted Diane Shipclark who graciously invited me to one of their Saturday get-togethers and I’ve rarely missed a meeting since.

The Heart Sisters constantly reinforce my belief that there’s nothing like the camaraderie of women.

We comfortably trade information about what’s going on in each of our lives and, most importantly, we’re there as sounding boards, giving feedback and support to each other when we share our various medical ups and downs.

Having gone to one previous support group where the members were extremely negative, I had my doubts about joining another one. But with my Heart Sisters, I feel safe sharing the details of my health issues – and sometimes crying about them, too. I feel we’re all kindred spirits who understand what we’ve each gone through, and I consider myself lucky to count them among my friends.

P.S. – I got my wish to live to see the next generation of our family. Our beautiful granddaughter Ava was born to Lilian and Trevor in November 2020, almost six years to the day of my heart attack.