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Erin's Heart Journey - The Beginning 

"I never dreamed that I could be at risk for heart disease."

Hi! My name is Erin O'Connell Peiffer and I am a heart disease survivor. Please be patient with me as this is my first attempt at blogging. I agreed to write for Sister to Sister because I am so excited about the fact that they are dedicated to the prevention of heart disease in women. The good news is that this disease is largely preventable and I am now an advocate for educating women about heart disease.

I never dreamed that I could be at risk for heart disease. I was in my late 30s, did not smoke, was not overweight, and did not have a family history of heart disease. In fact, I thought that only middle aged men could get heart disease. Nevertheless, I would soon discover how wrong I was!

Almost exactly seven years ago, at the age of 39, I was a telecommunication executive working full time with three young children, when my unexpected heart journey began. I was taking a water aerobics class in 2001 when I started coughing, my lungs crackling as I struggled to inhale. Thinking I might be having an asthma attack, though I had no history of that disease, I drove myself to Carroll Hospital Center in Westminster, Maryland. The emergency room doctor there told me I was suffering from congestive heart failure and flash pulmonary edema brought on by a virus. I was told to go home and take off of work to two weeks to let the virus "work its way out of my system". After undergoing a cardiac angiogram at Johns Hopkins, it turns out that it was not a virus but severe blockages in my left main coronary artery. A month after the pool episode, I underwent emergency double bypass heart surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. That was on March 2, 2001 -- my new birthday!.