{"id":31711,"date":"2018-01-24T10:23:10","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T17:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/?p=31711"},"modified":"2018-01-24T10:23:10","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T17:23:10","slug":"heart-attack-everything-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/","title":{"rendered":"My Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Photo<\/a>
Photo Source: Flickr Creative Commons by suez92 https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/88691054@N00\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

I wrote a post for the National Catholic Register discussing my latest medical problems. Here it is.<\/p>\n

My heart attack did everything it could to warn me, short of standing up, waving its arms and giving a stadium whistle.<\/p>\n

Looking back, with that oh-so-clear 20\/20 hindsight, I can see that I had been having symptoms for a long time. Then about six months ago, things really kicked into high gear.<\/p>\n

I had no idea that this was my heart, trying to warn me. I just thought\u2026 well\u2026 truth told, I don\u2019t know what, or if, I thought.<\/p>\n

That oh-so-clear 20\/20 hindsight looks back and sees me, at the beginning of this journey, going \u201cugh\u201d or something similar when I got hit with a passing symptom, and then immediately forgetting about it as if it hadn\u2019t happened. My thinking brain didn\u2019t pay attention to the early warning symptoms.<\/p>\n

I even had a dream in which a friend of mine who died a few years ago came to me and tried to warn me. I know. That\u2019s a bit touchy-feely for most people. But it was so real. I believed it, and I took it seriously.<\/p>\n

I joined Weight Watchers and started working out at a gym. I pushed myself as hard as I could in those workouts. Ironically, that was when the symptoms started getting mean.<\/p>\n

I wore a Polar heart monitor, complete with chest strap, while I worked out. Instead of using it to keep my heart rate within a safe range, I used it to track how many calories I was burning.<\/p>\n

I learned pretty quickly that if I kept the calorie burn high enough I could eat quite a bit more than the diet allowed and still lose a pound a week. That was what I wanted, to burn those calories, so I could eat more and still lose weight, so I poured it to those workouts.<\/p>\n

\n
The monitor gave me a readout that tracked my heart like an EKG. When I began having sudden bouts of nausea, dizziness, lightheadedness, breathlessness and feeling like I had to lie down right then or pass out, the monitor revealed that my heart rate was spiking up to way over 200 beats per minute. Those episodes could knock me flat, so that I felt sick and couldn\u2019t do anything for the rest of the day. Then, my heart started spiking when I wasn\u2019t exercising, for no reason.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I also had nagging pains in my jaw and chest, but they weren\u2019t all that bad. They were ignorable.<\/p>\n

Now, a smart woman would have gone to the doc. I have friends who told me I needed to go to the doc. But I\u2019ve enjoyed medical care these past two years just about as much as I can stand. I\u2019d rather eat dirt that expose myself to more hospital time.<\/p>\n

I decided \u2014 even though I knew better \u2014 to believe that these symptoms were just a reaction to being overweight and out of shape. Instead of backing off, I doubled down on the exercise, took a day off when I got laid out by one of those sudden flutters, and kept on keeping on. I guess my heart got tired of being ignored, because after a couple of months of this, it did something that nobody could ignore.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m giving you all the gory details because I want you to know what these things feel like. I\u2019m hoping you won\u2019t be as foolish as I was. It turns out I was lucky. But I could easily have died. (Read the rest here<\/a>.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote a post for the National Catholic Register discussing my latest medical problems. Here it is. My heart attack did everything it could to warn me, short of standing up, waving its arms and giving a stadium whistle. Looking back, with that oh-so-clear 20\/20 hindsight, I can see that I had been having symptoms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":30025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7869,793,538,8015,1],"tags":[8017,8016],"class_list":["post-31711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancer","category-health","category-health-care","category-heart-attack","category-uncategorized","tag-coronary","tag-heart-attack"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I wrote a post for the National Catholic Register discussing my latest medical problems. Here it is. My heart attack did everything it could to warn me,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I wrote a post for the National Catholic Register discussing my latest medical problems. Here it is. My heart attack did everything it could to warn me,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Catholic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-24T17:23:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/254\/2015\/07\/broken-heart.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rebecca Hamilton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rebecca Hamilton\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/\",\"name\":\"My Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-24T17:23:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-24T17:23:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/e8d2778109308e0e776e5c16eae7b67d\"},\"description\":\"I wrote a post for the National Catholic Register discussing my latest medical problems. Here it is. My heart attack did everything it could to warn me,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"My Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/\",\"name\":\"Public Catholic\",\"description\":\"Catholic in the Public Square\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/e8d2778109308e0e776e5c16eae7b67d\",\"name\":\"Rebecca Hamilton\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6253ced313d53e0b7bfa51e5c9eb56d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6253ced313d53e0b7bfa51e5c9eb56d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Rebecca Hamilton\"},\"description\":\"During her tenure in the Oklahoma Legislature, Rep. Hamilton has been an advocate for human rights, believing that government must support and defend the sanctity of all human lives, from conception to natural death. Representative Hamilton: Authored the original Victim\u2019s Protective Order to protect battered women, Obtained funding for the first statewide program for adult day care and the first statewide program of domestic violence shelters, and she She has also passed legislation to prevent law enforcement officials from publicly posting the private information of rape victims, Rep. Hamilton authored a 2005 law hailed as the most significant piece of pro-life legislation in Oklahoma in 30 years. She also passed the bill outlawing elective abortions in state-funded hospitals She has passed pro life bills requiring informed consent, parental notification, and limiting forced abortions. She also passed a law allowing prosecutors to file criminal charges against anyone who intentionally causes the death of an unborn child by harming the mother. Rep. Hamilton has also authored legislation ensuring taxpayers are not forced to subsidize elective abortions Rep. Hamilton was one of six original co-founders of first rape crisis center in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma City Democrat has worked to bring a wide range of groups together to fight on the behalf of abused women, including the creation of the Annual Day of Prayer for an End to Violence Against Women at the Oklahoma Capitol. Rep. Hamilton has been married for 30 years to her husband, Rodney, and the couple has two grown sons. She attends St. James Catholic Church, and is a long-time volunteer at Birth Choice of Oklahoma.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/author\/rhamilton\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"My Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me","description":"I wrote a post for the National Catholic Register discussing my latest medical problems. Here it is. My heart attack did everything it could to warn me,","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"My Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me","og_description":"I wrote a post for the National Catholic Register discussing my latest medical problems. Here it is. My heart attack did everything it could to warn me,","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/","og_site_name":"Public Catholic","article_published_time":"2018-01-24T17:23:10+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":640,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/254\/2015\/07\/broken-heart.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Rebecca Hamilton","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rebecca Hamilton","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/","name":"My Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-01-24T17:23:10+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-24T17:23:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/e8d2778109308e0e776e5c16eae7b67d"},"description":"I wrote a post for the National Catholic Register discussing my latest medical problems. Here it is. My heart attack did everything it could to warn me,","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2018\/01\/heart-attack-everything-warn\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"My Heart Attack Did Everything It Could to Warn Me"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/","name":"Public Catholic","description":"Catholic in the Public Square","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/e8d2778109308e0e776e5c16eae7b67d","name":"Rebecca Hamilton","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6253ced313d53e0b7bfa51e5c9eb56d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f6253ced313d53e0b7bfa51e5c9eb56d?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Rebecca Hamilton"},"description":"During her tenure in the Oklahoma Legislature, Rep. Hamilton has been an advocate for human rights, believing that government must support and defend the sanctity of all human lives, from conception to natural death. Representative Hamilton: Authored the original Victim\u2019s Protective Order to protect battered women, Obtained funding for the first statewide program for adult day care and the first statewide program of domestic violence shelters, and she She has also passed legislation to prevent law enforcement officials from publicly posting the private information of rape victims, Rep. Hamilton authored a 2005 law hailed as the most significant piece of pro-life legislation in Oklahoma in 30 years. She also passed the bill outlawing elective abortions in state-funded hospitals She has passed pro life bills requiring informed consent, parental notification, and limiting forced abortions. She also passed a law allowing prosecutors to file criminal charges against anyone who intentionally causes the death of an unborn child by harming the mother. Rep. Hamilton has also authored legislation ensuring taxpayers are not forced to subsidize elective abortions Rep. Hamilton was one of six original co-founders of first rape crisis center in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma City Democrat has worked to bring a wide range of groups together to fight on the behalf of abused women, including the creation of the Annual Day of Prayer for an End to Violence Against Women at the Oklahoma Capitol. Rep. Hamilton has been married for 30 years to her husband, Rodney, and the couple has two grown sons. She attends St. James Catholic Church, and is a long-time volunteer at Birth Choice of Oklahoma.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/author\/rhamilton\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31711"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31713,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31711\/revisions\/31713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}