Sister to Sister

Carol explains many reasons a woman should address her heart symptoms.

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Carol:
Here, recently a man kind of chided me. In a friendly way he said, “Well you’re talking, this is all about women,” and I said, “Yes sir.” I said, “But you know something, if your wife gets sick, you’ve got a problem.”

So it affects everybody and nobody wants to be down and out. So I just really feel so strongly that it’s important to take care of yourself. When you go to your doctor, your primary doctor, tell him, “I want you to start talking to me about heart.”

There are a lot of methods today that don’t require invasive procedures. There are blood tests, things of that nature that can be detection of early heart disease or an early detection of heart disease. So this is what I am after. You will make your doctor talk to you.

My best friend in the park, we play a lot of golf together and she has had a lot of different issues and I said, “Has your doctor ever talked to you about your heart disease, I mean about heart?” She said no so I made her do that and he had her do the stress test, do all the things; she is fine. And I said, “But isn’t that a great peace of mind? You know, find out you are fine – that was worth everything.” So that’s the whole idea is stay well, don’t wait too long to find out. So that’s my passion.

For More Information On Heart Disease And Banner Health Visit www.BannerHealth.com/BannerHeart

Provider:  Banner Health

Carol explains how women unintentionally ignore their heart symptoms and shares why she is excited that cardiologists are recognizing that heart disease in women presents differently than heart diseas

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Carol:
Because most of them are in denial. They are so used to taking care of other people, they are only family members and doing everything, when they have something that’s sort of an admiration, they say, “Oh, it’ll go away,” this or that, and it’s so important to listen and that’s part of my message out there is to take charge of your own body, listen to your symptoms because, particularly and fortunately, the doctors today are saying that women have different symptoms, hello, and this is the most wonderful thing that’s happened.

And we just tend to ignore. I was so confused by mine. One of the ones I had in the evening, after the day, I would be sitting there, “Gee wiz, what did I, why is my back?” So I’d get heat and put on heat, you know. There we go again, and that’s one of the symptoms and it can be in the lower back, but women have strange symptoms and we’ve all been listening to the traditional symptoms that men had for all these years.

So that’s why I am out there beating my lips trying to get people to listen and the women, and I was out to a golf course here recently and the young woman who runs the cart there, I see her a lot and so stopped and gave each other a big hug and she said that she had been to her cardiologist and taken a stress test and he said to her, “Well, this really looks okay, but because you are a woman,” and I jumped off the ground and I said, “We’re there, we’re there!”

A cardiologist said “because you are a woman” and this is so great that the cardiologist probably think I’m not supposed to feel that way, but it is, it’s a known fact that women have not been addressed the same for their symptoms as the men. So, I am just saying the cardiologists are wonderful because they are now paying attention and they are now addressing it.

For More Information On Heart Disease And Banner Health Visit www.BannerHealth.com/BannerHeart

Provider:  Banner Health

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Carol describes why she developed more healthy life changes after having heart bypass surgery and encourages other to exercise and eat consciously.

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Carol:
Health is what it’s all about and lifestyle, for a lot of people it requires a massive change in lifestyle. I already was always active and athletic and so I led a pretty healthy lifestyle. I always tried to maintain, you know, reasonable eating habits, never smoked, and it’s one of the most major things is that the health before and after.

Before it doesn’t always save you from having heart problems, but after, it’s how you proceed and the change of health and eating habits and the most major thing along with that is exercise. Exercise is the number one thing that people must do.

Walk, ride a bicycle, of course I’m a golf and I don’t always walk the course because they don’t allow you to, but I walk as much, I run. I have been known to run up and down escalators, but not seriously, but I do run up the up escalators when I can and anyway, but I joined Curves about a year ago and there’s one near my family, I mean near my home there, and it’s such a wonderful thing because it is great, great, great for cardiovascular.

Everything they do there is tuned to do certain things for your body and it focuses on the cardiology, the vascular, but it’s a great thing and right now the place is packed with women and the thing that I noticed, in between each machine you are supposed to do a little movement on the boards and I am there hopping and hip hopping and some of those ladies are barely moving. But you know what, they are there and they are moving and they are doing something for their health.

So no matter what level of activity that you are able to maintain, it’s wonderful to see these women in there looking after themselves and some of them are older than I am. So, it’s just great to see and because I am involved there, this month, heart month, I have asked them, you know, we’ve gotten involved and making this heart month at the Curves, the two Curves that are in my neighborhood and we are hoping to do the walk and we’ll do raffles, we’ll do all kinds of things to raise money for the heart center, which stays right in our own neighborhood.

So, I am really happy to get involved in that and it’s a great and it’s, I really speak highly of our Curves because they do so much to keep people in good health and that’s the whole thing is exercise because you can go on a diet and if you don’t exercise with that diet it’s not going to do the job right, but I do. I like to eat like everybody else and I allow myself some treats and things, but for the most part I try and maintain a good healthy lifestyle and hope to keep going.

But we owe it to our families, you know, not to become a burden without them and it’s so easy to go out and walk. It doesn’t cost anything, and bicycles; everything is super good. Just keep going.

I am Carol Peterson and I just shared my heart story with you, and I will hope that you share your heart story with us.

For More Information On Heart Disease And Banner Health Visit www.BannerHealth.com/BannerHeart

Provider:  Banner Health

Carol explains why she became an advocate for women's heart health after experiencing her own heart problems.

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Carol:
My same friend Elaine who made me get out of the car into the Banner emergency room, I was having lunch with her yesterday and she is saying, “I am having this thing happen again,” so I started in on her right away and she lives out in the West Valley, but I said, “You get into that, to your doctor and check that out.” And I said, “You got a great hospital out there,” that she is familiar with and of course the Heart Hospital itself is in Mesa, but she will look after it, she was going to follow-up on it today because that’s one thing I do is I preach.

I am sure all my friends get sick and tired of me talking about health and heart and everything having gone through it, but it’s my goal in life, my passion to prevent women’s heart disease and so I am always out there with my ears open and my mouth going and trying to get people to address their own issues and to take charge of their own body.

So she is going to follow-up on it and I will be glad to hear from her. It’s probably okay, but it’s just something that I do, it’s just a passion to, you know, one out of three women die of heart disease. That’s an unreasonable amount and I am trying, it’s just a personal battle, personal passion for me to, I can’t say win the battle, but at least get in there and fight against it and so that’s with the help of my heart tournament that’s what I do and it’s been so successful.

The first two years that I actually was able to raise over, well generate over $30,000.00, which was turned over to Banner Heart and I am really, really personally proud to say that that was a factor in there being able to open the new heart center and so we are really, really excited about that. It’s going to be such a big, big thing in our Valley here to finally have a center that addresses women’s heart disease specifically.

For More Information On Heart Disease And Banner Health Visit www.BannerHealth.com/BannerHeart

Provider:  Banner Health

Carol recalls if she suffered from depression after heart bypass surgery and explains how she has remained active since her recovery.

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Carol:
One of the questions that comes up in the rehab questionnaire is they say, “Do you have any depression?” And I said, “Why would I be depressed? I just got a second life? I am here to live and thanks to the hospital and the rehab nurses and the doctors and everybody at Banner Heart, I have everything to be happy about.” Depression isn’t s word that I probably couldn’t spell it if I had to and I don’t want to.

Oh it’s just a good experience. I am glad I did it and it improved my health and you learn about nutrition and the things that you need to do to keep, you know, invigorated with your life. So that’s what I have done.

I am 75-years-old and in fact, this last summer I gave myself a 75th birthday party by driving about 4200 miles around the country just to see some people that I care about and in so doing, my daughters and I had elected to take the raft trip, which we had never done before.

We were staying in a little mountain cabin and we decided to do that. Well, grandma got tossed from the train and I went into the water in the rapids and came up with my paddle and said, “I’m okay. I’m okay”, and running at the water I thought, “Oh, well okay I am here. Do what you need to do,” and that was an invigorating experience. I bobbled around in the boulders like a ping-pong ball for a while and caught the next boat. So, it was a great experience. I learned later the water was 42 degrees but that didn’t, I didn’t notice that at the time. Anyway, so I a pretty active and I just live life as much as I can every day.

For More Information On Heart Disease And Banner Health Visit www.BannerHealth.com/BannerHeart

Provider:  Banner Health

Carol explains what occurred when she arrived at the Banner emergency department with heart disease symptoms.

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Carol:
When I arrived at Banner in the emergency room I was so impressed by the fact that they came to me; I didn’t really want to bother anybody. They came up to me and said, “Well is there something we can help you with?” So I explained and I got instant attention and was treated immediately.

They went through all of the usual things to look for heart and so I was there, you know, sometime while they did all the administration things that they needed to do and the assessment and was admitted that night and eventually transferred over to the heart section of Banner and they treated me there so well and made me comfortable and I still hadn’t gotten a total assessment yet.

They advised me later that yes, I did have problem. I had had the cath and they had found that I had some blocked arteries and went and had that and then it turned out that I had three arteries that were 90% blocked, and so I had the surgery and it went very, very well and I just think they did a super job.

I had no complaints and was very successful in my recovery and the two women from the rehab came to check with me and I had a lot of attention. And, so they did a great job.

For More Information On Heart Disease And Banner Health Visit www.BannerHealth.com/BannerHeart

Provider:  Banner Health

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