Denise

Heart attack

High cholesterol

From nursing others to a quadruple bypass

Denise spent years caring for others as a nurse and midwife. But last November when she felt pain in her teeth calling an ambulance didn’t seem necessary. Little did she know it was the start of a heart attack. A life-saving emergency quadruple bypass followed. Denise shares her story to urge others: don’t wait.

As a midwife, ex-nurse, and horse-riding enthusiast, Denise is an active person and in her own words “a bit of a gym goer”. 

With her medical experience and positive lifestyle habits, the 62-year-old had no reason to think there was anything wrong with her heart. 

“I'm a midwife. I was previously a nurse, so I'm in the health profession. I have a degree of knowledge about health things. I'm a big horse rider. I live with my partner Steve on a lifestyle block. We've got sheep, cows, horses and cats. I'm quite a busy person,” she says.

But one Sunday morning in November last year, she felt a strange pain in her mouth. It would be the first of very few warning signs that something wasn’t right.

Bizarre pain, decision not to call the ambulance, family history

“There was a very strange 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. “Steve sat there with the phone, and I sat there as well, and I went, ‘no, hold on a minute. Just wait a minute.’ And then I chewed on an aspirin and just got on with it.”

Other than the pain in her teeth, there were few signs something serious was wrong. Given her family history, she decided to call the GP but there was no available appointment for a month.

“I had an uncle die who was in his 40s with coronary issues despite being a triathlete, and my mother did as well when she was in her 60s.”

Denise booked in for an ECG with the nurse on the Wednesday. Because of her family history, the medical team organised for her to have a stress test at the hospital.

She thought she aced the stress test. Then the cardiologist entered the room.

“As far as I knew, everything was fine, but the cardiologist was putting little rings around bits of my ECG. He spoke to the consultant, and they said we want to get you in for an angiogram as soon as possible. We're not very happy about this.”

Still riding and unaware before shock diagnosis

While doctors were concerned, Denise felt fine. She kept riding horses - 25km one day and 10km the next. “I told a few friends something might be a bit dodgy.”

Denise was invited for an angiogram on Christmas Eve but declined, instead rebooking for early January.

“They said if we see anything that needs stenting, we’re going to stent at the same time… They had a look but didn’t put any stents in. They hadn’t done anything. I thought, well, that was a waste of time.”

But the medical team sat Denise down and gave her the news she never expected to hear – “you need a bypass now.”

‘Maybe I was in denial’, Denise’s plan before surgery

Fortunately for Denise, she had no symptoms, which not only stunned doctors but meant she had a year to get bypass surgery.

“I didn’t feel ill. Maybe I was in denial. Doctors seemed a bit bemused by it all. One of them said I’d probably formed collateral roots (a natural bypass created by the body).

“My cholesterol was elevated. But because the whole ‘I’m a health professional’ thing, I always just looked at the ratios and thought, well, that's fine. I didn't really worry about that. And, you know, I think maybe I should have highlighted that a bit more.”

Feeling relatively fine, Denise didn’t want to waste the summer before having surgery.

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

The final warning sign and heart attack

Denise was at work one Tuesday when she met Steve for lunch. But something wasn’t right.

“I told him I've got to go and lie down. I'm really tired. I just don't feel quite right, and that's all I can explain it as, maybe a bit of pressure or tightness.”

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 to hospital. 

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. This is different from a STEMI, which is caused by a complete blockage in a heart artery. Both are serious and need immediate medical attention. 

“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 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. She chose private care meaning an earlier surgery date but having to go home first. 

“Honestly, the writings on the wall… basically, I had to stay alive for 10 days.”

In that time, Denise needed to self-medicate and take a concoction of medicine. 

“It seems like they put me on massive anticoagulants. 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 recovery

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 she knew she couldn’t go horse-riding until 12-weeks post-surgery to make sure she was fully healed.

She went back to work in May, saying “I probably could have gone back earlier, but I didn’t want to.”

Learning to ask for help, cardiac rehab

Despite her medical background, Denise found asking for help the hardest part.

“Having been a nurse, I didn’t want to be seen as that little old lady in bed that needed help. I hated ringing that bell to ask for help. Sometimes I'd lay there for four hours deciding whether I was going to ring the bell or not. 

“It wasn't anything that they did. They were brilliant, but that reliance on other people was really hard.”

Attending cardiac rehab sessions, which included exercise and opportunities to connect with other cardiac patients, gave Denise a new perspective on heart disease. 

“When you're thinking of cardiac patients, you’re thinking of unfit people that are overweight, but most people in there were not unfit. One guy was rowing miles and miles, another guy was a cyclist, I was like, this is madness. This isn’t your perception of who suffers heart issues.”

Denise’s critical advice for others

“If you’re crook and unwell, go and get yourself checked over. The amount of excuses I made for myself… but it's difficult. 

“As you get older, you put not feeling quite right down to age. If you're not sure, just go and get a check-up. There's no harm in getting a full top to toe check, doing some bloods, taking your blood pressure, and having them check your cholesterol.

“If you've got a family history of something and you can't see a doctor, go and get an ECG done and just talk to people.”