“I had a burning sensation, and I chalked it up to heartburn,” says 57-year-old Joan Wilson. “But I actually had 80 percent and 95 percent blockage of two arteries. In 2005, I survived heart disease thanks to UAB – and my daughter, who insisted on taking me to the emergency room.”

My symptoms
“I had a burning sensation for several months, and I self-diagnosed and chalked it up to heartburn. So, I didn’t really pay a lot of attention, because I told myself, ‘Oh, you’re getting older, you know you can’t eat rich foods, you have to cut back on that.’ You know, heartburn is what happens to older people, so there you go.

“One night I went out with friends and had a piece of cheesecake and I had that same feeling but I just thought I shouldn’t have eaten that – it was too rich. Then I went from just feeling clammy to getting a tingling, kind of achy thing in my lower left jaw, to numb fingers.”

“I sent my daughter to the drugstore to get some Pepcid. And when she came back, she looked at me, and I’d turned gray, and she said, ‘You’re not having heartburn, you’re having a heart attack.” I thought, ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’ But she called 911.

“I told the ambulance to bring me to UAB. They did EKGs and the emergency room doctor came in, and he said, ‘We have just enough for us to be suspicious.’ And I’m, like, ‘Suspicious of what? Just give me something for heartburn, let me go.’ But they admitted me into the hospital. I wasn’t very happy with that because nothing was wrong with me, you know.”

“I had a cardiac catheterization the following Monday, and my cardiologist, Brigitta Brott, said I had blockage in two arteries, 95 percent and 80 percent, so that was a shock.”

“I had two coronary stents put in. I came in on a Saturday they kept me for observation till Monday and that’s when they put the first stent in. Because there were two blockages, I was scheduled to come back for the second stent later – the doctor said two at one time would be too stressful on my body. I knew she was looking out for me and that was a good thing.”

“When I came to the emergency room, I didn’t want to be here. I had an attitude but they were so incredibly patient, as though I was the only one they had to see. And they were putting their hands on me to help me be calm. They were sympathetic to my daughter – they gave me a sense of wellbeing.

“There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to come to UAB because of the reputation here for heart research. I know this institution. I’m an employee in surgery, so I know the quality of the surgeons, I know the quality of the research and heart research, and how we rank very high in the country. And the care was just phenomenal.”

“My experience gave me a better appreciation for what the patients go through – I’m in surgery administration so I only occasionally talk to patients, but it has made me more sympathetic, I want to help them because I felt that loving care.

“I’ve also become aware of the value of life – people have said, ‘Do you know how close to dying you were?’ I’m also more health conscious - exercise is important, what I put in my body is important.

“I went to cardiac rehab for six weeks, and that’s very intensive. I got an education in how I can prevent heart disease. You get an exercise plan and talk to a nutritionist. There’s a psychologist too, and that was very educational because the mind and body are so connected. It was a very eye-opening experience, to realize how it’s impacted me, my life, my family.”

“To me, the cardiac rehab was as important as having the stents put in. That was the physical part to get the blockage out, but I needed to get some mental blockage out, too, with the way I thought about certain things.”

“One of the surgeons in our department told me the symptoms for men are more predominant than the symptoms for women - men have that left arm goes numb thing. The surgeon’s mother passed away of heart disease, after telling his dad one night that she had a sensation. She just didn’t wake up the next morning.

“Recently, a friend of mine said ‘I’m having a sensation in my chest’ and I told her to get it checked because I would have just called mine a sensation. And I was sitting here with blockage in two major arteries.

“My symptoms weren’t anything I’d heard of as a classic heart situation - I hadn’t heard about the burning. I’d heard about the numbness and the tingling.”

“I really didn’t have any risk factors for heart disease – I’m not overweight or diabetic. If my daughter hadn’t pushed it I probably wouldn’t have gone to the emergency room.

“As women, we tend to push ourselves back sometime, whereas if it was a child we’d say ‘I’ll take you to the doctor.’ We tend to be caregivers of others, and just used to saying ‘Oh, I’ll be all right.’

“I’d tell a woman who’s having similar symptoms, ‘This is what I did. It was a stupid thing. It almost cost me my life. Had my daughter not said, ‘I’m calling the ambulance,’ I probably wouldn’t be sitting here today.” If you have symptoms, what can it hurt to get it checked? It’s only taking a little bit of your time. And if I could tell somebody what I went through and how positive that experience was, I would say go here. Go to UAB.”