‘I had to stay alive for 10 days’: Midwife’s fight for survival after a shock heart attack

Published: 12 February 2026

For decades, Denise, a nurse, midwife, and caregiver, was the one people turned to in moments of crisis.

The 62-year-old had no reason to think anything was wrong with her heart. She was  active, an avid horse rider, had medical experience and lived a healthy life.

But one Sunday morning in November 2024, a strange pain in her teeth signalled the start of a fight for her own life.

“There was a very intense pain in my front two teeth, which was bizarre. The sensation was enough for me to say to my partner ‘Steve, I think you should call an ambulance.’”

Despite her initial reaction to call 111, Denise hesitated, decided to take an aspirin and carried on with her day. She was then booked in for an ECG and stress test.

After booking in for an ECG, Denise thought she’d aced her stress test, but the cardiologist said “we want to get you in for an angiogram as soon as possible. We're not very happy about this.”

By the time of her angiogram in January, the alarm bells were ringing. That’s when she received the news she never expected to hear – she needed heart bypass surgery.

The final warning sign and heart attack

With holidays planned over summer, Denise held off on surgery. 

“I've got friends coming, I've got a boat trip. I’ve got numerous horse-riding clinics I'm going to. I said, ‘Steve, I'm having my summer. I can do this later’.”

But one day when she was at work, she felt something wasn’t right. Those summer plans would suddenly come to a halt.

She made a phone call to a cardiac rehab nurse: “I haven't got pain in my arm. I don't have pain in my chest. I don't have pain in my jaw or nothing on my left side. I don't have any of those things, but I just don't feel quite right.”

The cardiac rehab nurse called an ambulance and minutes later Denise was whisked away.

The doctor revealed she had suffered an NSTEMI, a type of heart attack that happens when a blood vessel supplying the heart gets partly blocked, so the heart doesn’t get enough oxygen.

“He couldn't believe I'd been out horse riding all weekend. He told me I’m considered unstable and would need urgent surgery. He said we need to get onto this now.”

‘I had to stay alive for 10 days’

Denise needed an urgent quadruple bypass but faced a difficult decision: stay on the public waitlist with no immediate surgery date, or go private, which meant she couldn’t wait in hospital and would have to go home first.

With Denise living rurally, the doctor didn’t want to send her home in case something went wrong.

“If I went home and something happened to me, I haven’t got much chance,” she recalled. Despite that, she didn’t want to wait for surgery and chose private care meaning an earlier surgery date but having to risk going home.

“Honestly, the writing’s on the wall… basically, I had to stay alive for 10 days.

“Those 10 days were very worrying. I was having to self-medicate all this stuff at home. And I hated them. The injections in the tummy were really sore.”

Quadruple bypass surgery 

On January 28 Denise underwent successful quadruple bypass surgery, but her first few days were tough.

“The first 24 hours was really difficult. The first three days I barely opened my eyes and interacted with anybody. It was really hard. I put on eight kilos in fluid, and when I looked at my hands I had no wrinkles at all.”

Denise faced complications, including a partially collapsed lung and fluid buildup in her legs.

After 10 days, Denise returned home and slowly regained her strength. By six weeks she felt herself again, but knew a full recovery was weeks away.

Luckily, the 62-year-old is alive to tell the tale, and she has a crucial message for others concerned about their heart.

“When you think of cardiac patients, you think of unfit people that are overweight. That couldn’t be further from the truth. 

“Having been a nurse, I didn’t want to be seen as that little old lady in bed that needed help. 

“If you’re crook, unwell, or just not feeling right, go and get yourself checked over. The amount of excuses I made for myself… There's no harm in getting a full top to toe check.”

Denise shares her story as part of the Big Heart Appeal which takes place in February 2026, in the hope that New Zealanders will continue supporting the heart research that saves lives every day.