Forty-two- year old Kim Strong is an outdoor sports fanatic.
"You name it, we do it," Kim Strong, heart attack survivor said.
She fearlessly skis double diamonds and surfs the monster waves in Costa Rica.
"I don't go down, ever!" Kim said.
That changed on July 11, 2012.
"I was watching television with my husband and I said, 'I have a weird feeling. I feel like I flossed my teeth too hard,'" Kim explained. "The next morning I had a back ache, chest pain, and the jaw pain was killing me. I told my husband that I thought I was having a heart attack. He told me, 'you are not having a heart attack,' and then he taps me on the bootie and says, 'get ready, get dressed, and go to work.'"
She then collapses in her bedroom closet. He drives her to the hospital and in minutes her suspicion is confirmed, heart attack.
"I have a blood-clotting syndrome," Kim said.
"Heart disease hits very young people, very productive people, and that's one of the reasons why it's very scary," Dr. Swathy Kolli, Cardiologist at Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, Orlando.
Dr. Swathy Kolli says it's worse if you don't know all the signs. In women, that includes nausea, vomiting, shoulder, neck, and jaw pain.
"These are the symptoms that people usually don't pay attention to," Dr. Kolli said. Kim did for one reason, a card. A handout at the annual American Heart Association "Go Red Luncheon" she attended two months earlier.
"No other way to say it, if I hadn't gone, I would have pushed through it because I am a pretty tough girl," Kim explained.
Kim's extreme sporting days are over, but she says the tradeoff is worth it. "I have to be here for my kids. I have to see what happens," Kim said.
The major risk factors for heart disease are hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking, and family history. Kim's blood clotting disorder is genetic. She's planning on having her children tested, since they have a 50/50 chance of having it, too. Dr. Swathy Kolli says the lesser-known factors are obesity and certain inflammatory diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Dr. Swathy Kolli
Cardiologist
Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, Orlando
swathy.kolli@gmail.com
