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/ h lys y w'M IX f AZy Vs7 rtv•• 7> V^/' 'fyÇy V/ ! v y V'-../' ri il * ww <> v 0 O k> ' ! 1 Wednesday, February 17, 1999 COMMUNITY CALENDAR • LIFESTYLES • SPORTS • COMMUNITY CORRESPONDENCE • TV LISTINGS Stl***l Hf • • • -.-7 : ■ 1 --I: liWi """ill m by Jennifer Stone Staff Writer Libby Dollar-Smithson thought she'd swallowed swallowed some food wrong, and it had gotten lodged. She was experiencing chest pain. Then her right arm started to hurt -- "like there was a red hot poker right down the middle," she remembers, It was August 24, 1995. Dollar-Smithson was 36, the mother of six-year-old twins. She was in good health. Her cholesterol, she would later learn, was actually quite low. She'd never experienced any symptoms, nor did she have any family history which might prepare her for the diagnosis she received later that day. Without any warning, she suffered a heart attack. "The pain in my arm is what scared me," KEEPING TRACK -- Lyne Puddister checks her blood pressure on a monitor available at McGregor IDA Drugs in Bowmanvillc. While Canadian women are receiving a failing grade from the Heart and Stroke Foundation in terms of their heart health, blood pressure monitoring was one area where women excelled. Eighty-three percent of women reported having had their blood pressure checked in the past year. says Dollar-Smithson, who at the time lived in Oshawa. "I knew something was wrong then. I was starting to panic." She refused to call an ambulance, but allowed her husband, Mark, to drive her to Oshawa General Hospital. She walked into the Emergency Department on her own steam. "The doctor originally told me, 'It's not your heart, because it's your right arm,'" says Dollar-Smithson. But further tests proved the initial diagnosis wrong. "The emergency doctor said there was just a little something there. He called down an internist from the cardiac floor, and he said, 'yes, you've had a heart attack,"' she recalls. According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, symptoms of heart disease disease in women can include: vague chest discomfort discomfort or a crushing, radiating "chest pain; heaviness, pressure, squeezing, fullness, burning burning or pain that may begin in the centre of the chest and spread to the neck, jaw, and shoulders; shoulders; nausea and vomiting and/or indigestion; indigestion; shortness of breath, paleness, paleness, sweating or weakness; a feeling of anxiety or fear; persistent persistent pain or sudden severe chest pain. After two weeks at Oshawa General Hospital, Dollar-Smithson was transferred to St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, where they learned why she, of all people, had a heart attack. "One artery is 99.9 percent blocked," explains Dollar-Smithson. "There's no way to tell if it was possibly possibly a birth defect" or to render any other explanation.,.' .... , The normal protocol would have been to do an angioplasty, a procedure to help open up the blocked artery. But, at the time, the surgery wasn't advanced enough to ensure good odds of a positive outcome. "The blockage was too long, and it was in a branch. There was too much risk of having a heart attack on the table," explains Dollar-Smithson. She believes with better technology now available, the procedure could be done. Dollar-Smithson is one of a growing number of Canadian women suffering from some form of heart disease. While for Dollar-Smithson, the heart attack came with no warning, doctors say many women simply ignore warning signs. February is : ? HEALTHY,AND HAPPY •-- Libby.Dollar-Smithson, with 10-year-old twins Sarah and Cory,- enjoys good health today, in spite of suffering a heart attack almost four years ago. One of the first things she checked before buying a home in Clarington was whether or not 9-1-1 service was available. available. Fortunately, it is. Heart and Stroke month. With heart disease and stroke remaining the leading cause of death for Canadians, awareness is increasingly important. According to a report by the Heart and Stroke Foundation, women are not making the grade when it comes to heart health. The study says up to two-thirds of women were making lifestyle choices which put them at risk of developing heart attack and stroke. Just over half of those women had talked to their doctors about this major health concern, or recognized the threat these diseases posed to them. Heart disease and stroke account for 40 percent percent of all female deaths in Canada. Continued on page 2 Heart disease and stroke account for 40 percent of all female deaths in Canada. Bowmanville Girl has Come a Long Way Making Strides Jess McEachern with cat, Misty by Jennifer Stone Staff Writer Jess McEachern knows exactly what's waiting for. her when she goes to the Hospital For Sick Children for her annual check-up in May. "They have a little thing that's swirly, and they put some yucky stuff on them and rub them around. Then they put these gluey things and wires on," says Jess; describing the echocardiogram and electrocardiogram procedures procedures which have become almost routine for her. Three Strokes Jess will turn 11 in a few weeks. When she was only eight years old, after surgery to help blood flow through a valve in her heart, she suffered three strokes. "They believe the clots pulled away during during surgery," causing the strokes, says | Jess' mother, Kathy, adding the surgery three years ago was Jess' second heart operation, The first was when she was just a week old. Kathy says Jess just "wasn't coming coming out of the anaesthetic" after her surgery. s "She was incoherent. They put her back into ICU for a few days to monitor her," Kathy remembers. Doctors at the hospital prepared Jess' parents for the worst, at one point saying, she might not even make it through the night. Her parents parents remained at her side in the hospi- -- in fact, during the two weeks when Jess was at her worst, her father, Rick, went home to sleep only one night. "She's daddy's girl," says Kathy. The stroke left Jess with a number of problems to overcome. overcome. "By, the beginning of the second week (after the surgery), surgery), she had no idea she had a right side," says Kathy. She began a regimen of physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy at Sick Kids. She then moved to Bloorview MacMillan Centre, a hospital for children with special needs and disabilities. There, the various therapies continued. She was then transferred to Grandview Rehabilitation and Treatment Centre in Oshawa for one month, before being re-integrated into the regular.school system. She now attends Central Public School in Bowmanville, where her mother says staff have been wonderful wonderful in dealing with Jess' needs. Since then, Kathy says Jess has regained 90 to 95 percent of her motor skills. While there is some speech impediment left, it is fairly mild. Through she has no peripheral vision from her right side, and she has some trouble with shortterm shortterm memory, her mother says she was "scared to even hope" Jess would do as well as she has. More Surgery Though more surgery is likely in Jess' future, her mother mother says she's not concerned about her daughter suffering another stroke. "There's next to no chance of this happening spontaneously," spontaneously," says Kathy. While the annual trip to Siek Kids causes stress for the whole family, including Jess, she says she'll make the best of it by thinking about the trip to McDonald's she'll lake with her parents after the check-up. "That's the part I like best about the hospital," Jess laughs. BoraniKseJ'^"'- elCâEWU-XUlt