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By Carrie VittitoeRuth Devore, 52 of Jeffersonville, Indiana, who was awarded the American Heart Association’s Lifestyle Change Award in October 2016, says, “I don’t know where I’d be without my heart attack,” since it motivated her to completely change her life.Prior to her attack on October 20, 2015, she says she would avoid walking down the hall if she could. After her heart attack, though, she lost 60 pounds, stopped smoking and developed an exercise habit four days a week. Ruth says her doctor told her, “You are my model patient for taking it and [...]

By Carrie Vittitoe Every woman who experiences a life-threatening cardiac event and shares her story serves as a witness for heart awareness. Joan Nelson, 65 of Buckner, Kentucky, was under a tremendous amount of stress in early 2014. Her husband, Ron, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2013, and Joan was his primary caretaker in addition to working full-time.She awoke on March 29, 2014, with a stiff neck, which wouldn’t normally be worrisome except that she had also had breathing difficulties for a few months. When she began feeling a tingly sensation down her [...]

By Carrie Vittitoe Once you’ve had a cardiac event, you are branded by the experience; you wear the “H” of heart disease in everything you do. Francine Bednar, 38 of Crestwood, Kentucky, was only 29 years old when she suffered a spontaneous coronary artery dissection a week after delivering her twins. That experience has influenced how she treats others and how she raises her children.For three to four months following her heart attack, Francine was very restricted in her activities. She was unable to lift more than 10 pounds and couldn’t twist her upper body [...]

By Carrie Vittitoe Two years ago, Jenny Leanhart, 43, of Middletown was doing what many other women do regularly: working a full-time job, raising three kids, plus having a house built. She had been experiencing headaches for about six weeks but wrote it off as stress. When she was getting into the shower on a Saturday morning, she began to feel dizzy and felt a violent shaking on the right side of her body. She called for her husband, Scott, who realized she was having a stroke and called 911. Upon arriving in the emergency [...]