The Skinny Bitch Story

This is my journey to find my skinny bitch.  I am by no means currently skinny, but because of a very early heart attack, I am striving to get back there.  I used to be one--you know the one.  The one that you look at who is beautifully thin and you know she has probably had kids.  You mumble under your breath, skinny bitch. I by no means am using this term in a derogatory manner, it is complimentary.  My skinny bitch status has been gone since shortly after I was married for the first time.  It is time to get that status back.

I suffered a heart attack on October 13, 2011 at the age of 42.  This came as a complete surprise.  Although I knew I wasn't he healthiest person, I didn't think that I was that unhealthy.  That day, I started feeling bad on the way home from work.  In retrospect, by the time I got home I knew I was really sick.  Trying to deny it, I changed clothes and took the dog out.  By the time I got back in the house I knew that I needed to call an ambulance.  I had a bad heaviness in my chest and a searing pain in my entire lower jaw.  I put the dog in her crate and called.  They had me chew aspirin and swallow it.


The ambulance arrived and my husband who was out of town called about then.  I told him I couldn't talk because the paramedics were there and I hung up the phone.  I'm sure it was the blood pressure of 200/120 and the foggy head this causes and I'm sure it totally freaked him out.  I did call him back to let him know not to worry that I was going with chest pain to the hospital.  They loaded me in the ambulance, and let me just say that there is no such thing as HIPAA (healthcare privacy) in my small town.  Every cop in town along with the paramedics were out in front of my house with their lights going.  This means that the entire neighborhood was outside trying to figure out what was going on at our house.

So,  I am in the ambulance and I look down at my purse and what do I see?  It of course is my week to have the on call work phone.  If it rings and I don't pick up the message, it rolls its way to everyone's phone numbers above me all the way up to the COO.  So  I ask the paramedics if I can make calls from the ambulance.  They look at me like I've lost my mind but say yes.  I call my coworker to come and get the phone from me at the hospital and then my ex husband to make sure he picks up the oldest daughter from school after the bus brings her back from a choir field trip.

I arrived at the hospital via ambulance and this is where I realize the paramedics were lying to me.  They told me I am probably just having angina.  They wheel me in and there are 25 people waiting on me.  Right then I probably knew that it was as serious as I thought it was.  The doc takes one look at the heart monitor and says "This is the real McCoy.  You are having a heart attack and we are going to surgery right now."  Someone puts a consent form in front of me and asks me if I will sign it.  Like I am going to say no? So I signed it.  About then, the coworker I called to come get the phone arrives.  She looks at me and I said I'm having a heart attack, the phone is in my purse.  She looks at me as stunned as I think I look. I remember saying to her, don't feel like you have to stay.  She looked at me too like I had lost my mind and said of course she was staying. She called my husband to let him know.  She called my ex-husband to let him know because he had my kids.

Once in the cath lab, they discover I have a hundred percent blockage in one of the arteries.  I later came to find out that this type of heart attack is known as the widow maker and only 20% of women that suffer this kind of heart attack survive.  For the other 80%, the first noticeable sign is death.  I feel very fortunate.  I had a very good interventional cardiologist, LMH was fabulous and the surgery is was success.  I spent the next couple days in the hospital and after a few weeks started researching my options to become healthier.

This blog is to chronicle my journey and share the information that I have learned. In the end, it will celebrate my rediscovered skinny bitch status.  Enjoy!