Huron Regional Medical Center

Does Busy-ness Hide Women's Heart Symptoms? After eating breakfast one cold morning, Brown went to put on her winter boots and could barely muster up the strength for the simple task. Huron Heroes "I wouldn't have told anyone about struggling to get into my boots, but when I arrived to my scheduled mammogram at Huron Regional Medical Center, I was struggling to catch my breath, and two medical personnel noticed," Brown says. They began asking Brown questions about symptoms, since heart attack warning signs in women can be mild. "When they told me I might be having a heart attack, I couldn't believe it," Brown says. "I didn't have time to have a heart attack." Making the Call Brown was hesitant to go to the emergency room, but the staff talked her into visiting Gregory Wiedel, MD, an internist with Tschetter & Hohm Clinic. Dr. Wiedel conducted a treadmill stress echocardiogram, which uses sound waves to determine a visual landscape of the heart, and confirmed Brown's heart was in jeopardy. Dr. Wiedel referred her to Kevin Vaska, MD, a visiting cardiologist with Sioux Falls Cardiovascular. "The very next week, Dr. Vaska placed a stent in my heart to unblock my left main coronary artery since it was 70 percent blocked," Brown says. "I would have ignored my symptoms until my blockage reached 100 percent, but thankfully my HRMC guardian angels acted fast." When 65-year-old Marsha Brown noticed unusual chest pain and fatigue that would come and go with some frequency, she misunderstood these heart attack symptoms as anxiety. Luckily, when she went in for her mammogram screening, a miracle took place. Life After Cardiac Rehab After spending five weeks completing HRMC's cardiac rehabilitation program, Brown now exercises on her own and looks forward to exercising more frequently upon her pending retirement. In the meantime, she feels brand new. "Before I couldn't even vacuum my apartment without breaking into a heavy sweat and physically wearing down, but now I have so much stamina to complete my jobs and tend to my home and mom," Brown says. "I have my life back." Brown's story will be featured at the SD Women's Expo on October 8. Before her heart attack, Marsha Brown worked multiple jobs and would often feel aches and pains in her arms. She didn't realize arm pain, upper body pain and fatigue are common heart attack symptoms for women. "I spent my time focusing on my responsibilities at work or to my family and didn't invest enough time listening to my body," Marsha says. "Even Tucker, my Jack Russell Terrier, noticed something wasn't right and would often sit on my chest, almost like he was listening to it." Marsha encourages other women to not ignore their symptoms. The Tells Marsha Brown and her guardian angels, Donna Haigh, mammography technician (on left), and Deb Rycraft, director of radiology for HRMC (on right), reconnect after their fateful meeting last December. 4 welloneconnection w w w. h u r o n r e g i o n a l . o r g

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