I Had a Heart Attack at Age 39

As told Jacquelyne Froeber

February is American heart.

It was Friday night in Waikiki and I was late. I hurried to the backstage and apologized with the crew. “I went to the Mac counter to make my makeup and took more time than planned,” I said.

That was not exactly true. I did not plan to go to Mac, I had forgotten my makeup at home. And it was not the first time. Shame, I avoided visual contact with the other singers.

The truth was that I didn’t know what was happening with me. I was tired all the time, drained, even walking through a stretch of stairs left me breathless. And oblivion was not like me. I attributed it to work full time and sing some nights a week, but I knew something was wrong.

Just before getting on the stage, I leaned down to put water in my cup and felt back pain. I gasp and stood up quickly. I had felt that pain before.

Approximately a year before, I was visiting friends in Las Vegas when I began to have stomach acidity and back pain and nausea that did not disappear. I knew that something was not right, so I called 911. In the hospital, they diagnosed me myocarditis – Inflammation of the heart muscle. But they couldn’t tell me why it was happening. He had not been sick and there was no known infection. I tried to ask questions: why did I have such severe pain? – But basically they bleed me, they gave me morphine that literally became ill and said that the symptoms would disappear on their own. He had a monitoring appointment at home, and the doctor said the same. I had myocarditis and it would be fine, but I shouldn’t work or exercise for approximately one month.

2019

Now, that same sensation had returned but a thousand times more intense. I did what many women do when experiencing heart problems: I tried to overcome it. I worked with myself: if I could pass the set, it would lead me directly to urgent care.

But I couldn’t do it. By then, I could barely get up. One of the singers called 911, and the responders took me to a stretcher through the place full of visitors and premises hoping to see the show.

In the hospital, the doctor entered the room and reviewed my symptoms with me. He said he was having a heart attack and wanted surgery.

I laughed. “That is not happening,” I said.

I was only 39 years old. I exercised most of the days of the week. I knew I could probably eat better, but it wasn’t as if I had a hamburger and fried potatoes every day. Besides, it was not even possible for someone of my age to have a heart attack … right?

I called my family. They agreed that it seemed strange that someone so young could have a heart attack, but that the procedure should have because something was wrong. I could not disagree.

When I woke up from surgery, the doctor confirmed that I had a heart attack and had to do angioplasty. He showed me on the radiography where the globe had been implanted in my heart. He also said that it was anemic, apparently low iron levels can be a factor that contributes to a heart attack, and that he needed to take medications to reduce cholesterol and blood pressure.

I nodded while he gave me recipes and authorized me to go home. After he left, I sat there stunned and tried to wrap my brain around what had just happened. I was still shock when a nurse commented on how beautiful she saw me. I realized that I was still in complete makeup, eyelashes and everything, the night before.

In the weeks after surgery, I was surprised how much I felt physically. I didn’t have laborious breathing. I was not tired. But mentally, I struggled. I was afraid to have another heart attack. I put on tiptoe in my life in a state of anxiety waiting for the other shoe to fall.

I was also depressed. I thought I was doing everything just before the heart attack and yet it still happened. I felt damaged in a way, as if it were my fault. He took some time, but I began to see a therapist and quickly learned that taking into account his mental health after a traumatic health event is as important as taking care of his physical health.

When I talked to family and friends about what happened, they all said the same thing: you are too young to have a heart attack. Most people, like me, thought you had to be older and experience chest pain, but it’s not like movies. Women can have different symptoms than men, including severe stomach acidity, back pain and nausea as well as me. And oblivion was also a sign due to the reduction of blood flow to my brain.

2019

I wanted to run my voice, so I contacted my local chapter of the American Heart Association. I started talking at events for heart attack survivors and sharing my experience with myocarditis, which was increasing in young people during Covid. In 2002, I had the honor of being an ambassador of the Go Red For Women movement of the American Heart Association to help raise awareness about the health of the heart.

I have learned that a heart attack can affect a woman’s life in a way that you would probably not think. For example, I could not continue taking contraceptive pills and I am not a candidate for hormonal therapy because hormones increase the risk of a cardiovascular event. In addition, he was devastated to know that he could not be a bone marrow donor despite being a game for someone who really needed it.

Looking back, I would like to have advocated more for myself during visits with medical care suppliers. I would have asked me more questions when they told him that “we would monitor” my cholesterol levels, but that did not include a timeline or the fact that high cholesterol could lead to a heart attack. I would have educated me about blood analysis and numbers and signs and symptoms of heart attacks in women.

Going through such a terrifying health scare changed my perspective of life. Not long after the heart attack, I left my corporate work full time to concentrate on singing and entertaining, mainly in cruises worldwide.

So far, I have been in 37 countries and I wake up excited to do what I love every day because I know that everything can disappear in an instant, so why not live the life you want to live? Just be sure to take care of your heart along the way.

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Our real women, real stories are the authentic experiences of real life women. The opinions, opinions and experiences shared in these stories are not backed by healthy women and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or the position of healthy women.