Stories from the Heart
Go Red For Women rings true for young editor at ad agency
Ann Hydorn, a copy editor for advertising agency Campbell-Ewald in Warren, has lent her skills many times to the quality assurance of Go Red campaign ads for the American Heart Association. Go Red For Women is a national movement that seeks to educate women about their risk for heart disease and stroke.
But, instead of just educating other women about heart disease, Ann got quite a lesson herself on Sunday, March 2. Ann, just 45 years of age, suffered a heart attack after having cardiac symptoms for nearly two weeks.
Monthly, Ann had her blood pressure checked by Kathy, one of the parish nurses at St. Louis Catholic Church in Clinton Township. On a good day, her blood pressure would be 170 over 100. On bad days, it could climb to 200 over 110. She was taking medication but it did not seem to be having much effect. And although she briefly quit smoking from 1996 to 2000, she had been a smoker since her early teens.
New Aches and Pains, Then Disbelief
Beginning in mid-February, Ann was experiencing some new aches and pains in her chest, and she also noticed a lack of energy. Every day, she’d have tightness and pain near her windpipe that would cause her to stop what she was doing and wait two to five minutes for the pain to subside. Because of the area of her discomfort, Ann assumed she just was having a little heartburn or indigestion, which was another ailment she was not familiar with.
But on the morning of Sunday, March 2, she felt pain just after sitting up in bed and thought that maybe it was a little more serious. As she got ready for church, another pain overtook her. But it wasn’t enough to stop her: She played in the handbell choir at the 8:30 a.m. Mass and handchime choir at the 10:30 a.m. Mass. Between Masses, Ann asked Kathy to check her blood pressure. It was elevated enough that Kathy suggested Ann go to the ER.
“After I finished playing, I took Kathy’s advice and went to the ER, just to check things out,” she said. “It was Sunday, so I thought I could get examined, find out if everything was okay, and not miss a day of work.
The tests were done at a community hospital, and Ann’s enzymes came back with alarming information, indicating a heart attack.
“I was in disbelief,” said Ann. “How could I have had a heart attack without knowing it?”
"Time is Muscle"
Hiroshi Yamasaki, MD, Medical Director of Interventional Cardiology, saw Ann in that ER and knew what had to be done. She needed a heart catheterization—immediately—and he suggested a transfer to St. John Hospital and Medical Center (SJH&MC). The local hospital could not do coronary angioplasty to open up the clogged artery.
Even though it was Sunday and there were few associates in the hospital, when EMS wheeled her to the W. Warren Heart and Circulatory Center at SJH&MC, she was amazed at how fast things went.
“I kept hearing the phrase: time is muscle,” Ann said.
The cath lab team is passionate about its door-to-balloon time, which is the time from when the patient arrives in the hospital until he or she is re-perfused. The team knows that every moment a person is without sufficient cardiac blood flow causes heart muscle to die.
During the past two years, SJH&MC has brought the "door to re-perfusion" time down from 140 minutes to near the new industry standard of 90 minutes for heart attack patients.
First, the hospital worked on a project with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to implement changes. Then they held a Rapid Improvement Event, part of the Operational Excellence initiative, to improve the process even more.
Fast Recovery
Ann was fortunate. Even though she did not come to the hospital at the first sign of her heart attack, Dr. Yamasaki was able to restore her 99 percent blocked artery using a stent to open up the clogged right coronary artery.
“The speed at which everyone worked was amazing,” said Ann. “And it was very obvious to me that they wanted the procedure done as quickly as possible…all for my benefit.”
Dr. Yamasaki was able to utilize the radial artery in the wrist for the procedure, rather than the femoral artery.
“Patients don’t have to lie flat for eight hours post-procedure with this approach,” he said. “Also, my patients have experienced a lower risk of access site-related complications, such as bleeding from the puncture site or blood transfusions,” he said.
Ann is a perfect example of a nonclassic heart attack—which is common among women. That’s why the information in the Go Red campaign is so important; it teaches women about those nonclassic symptoms and encourages them to become more heart healthy.
Two weeks later, March 17, Ann was back at work. And she’ll never look at a Go Red ad in the same way. She also shares her experience with other women, and men, to continue promoting awareness about heart disease.
