Wilsonville Spokesman Online

Surviving the symptoms of a heart attack

Sharon Steiger shares her story

• By: Michelle Te  
• Published: 3/2/2010 11:23:47 AM

Photo By: David HoffmanSurviving a heart attack
Sharon Steiger, pictured here just over a year ago with her grandsons, Joseph Hoffman of Redwood City, Calif., and Jack Morgan of Oak Grove.

Sharon Steiger said she doesn’t “look like a heart attack victim.”

Her cholesterol is borderline, she has always exercised regularly and is not overweight.

Yet the 67-year-old Wilsonville resident found herself lying on her bed last May surrounded by several paramedics, suffering from the symptoms of a heart attack.

Fortunately, Steiger was diagnosed and treated before heart damage occurred, but it was a dangerous lesson to learn, she said. She had quadruple bypass surgery after doctors discovered her left artery was 90 percent blocked and others were nearing that level.

“Given what could’ve happened, I could be gone,” she said. “I could’ve died on the way to the hospital, that’s really silly pride. I’ve got a couple of grandbabies I want to see grow up. I’m delighted to be here.”

But nearly a year later, Steiger is just beginning to realize her own denial over potential heart problems.
For two to three weeks before she called 9-1-1, Steiger had been experiencing feelings of indigestion, particularly in her upper left chest area. She would simply take some antiacid tablets, sit down and the feeling would go away.

“I remember thinking, ‘Hmmm, I should see the doctor, maybe this is more serious.’ I’ve always joked that I come from ‘sturdy peasant stock,’ and I’ve never really been sick,” she said. “I just denied it, basically.”

The day before she called 9-1-1, Steiger was outside sweeping her sidewalk and noticed she was suddenly breathless with very little exertion. The thought brushed through her mind: “Could it be my heart?”

Instead, she went inside and sat down, waiting for the feeling to pass.

The following morning, even before her morning coffee, Steiger again found herself breathless and experiencing indigestion pains. She shuffled off to the computer room, intent on looking up the symptoms of indigestion.

“All at once, it started hurting a lot,” she said. “It was 6 a.m., but I went in and woke up my husband from a sound sleep and said, ‘I think you should take me to the hospital.’ He told me to call my doctor, probably trying to buy some time.’”

It was a bit of a walk from the bedroom to the phone and Steiger became more breathless as the minutes passed. But she walked back to the bedroom, telling her husband she could only leave a message for her doctor with his answering service.

Just as they were making the decision to drive to the hospital in Portland, Steiger’s doctor called. When he realized she was out-of-breath without any exertion, he told her to hang up and immediately call 9-1-1.
“It was a good thing I did,” she said. “Having my husband drive me to the hospital was absolutely the wrong thing to do. What if I had experienced worse symptoms on the way? There would’ve been no one to help me.”

Within five minutes of her call, paramedics from Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue arrived at the Steigers home, located near Wilsonville High School.

Steiger doesn’t remember much, but that one of the paramedics had to crawl across her king-size bed to reach her and insert an IV. She said, “That hurts too much.”

The emergency responders also hooked up Steiger to a 12-lead EKG, a heart monitor once only found in hospital, but now included on all of TVF&R’s units.

“It tells you if you’re having a heart attack right then, and I wasn’t,” she said.

The EKG monitor not only provides information on the scene, but allows responders also to relay information to the hospital, where emergency room personnel can set up and be prepared for incoming patients.

Steiger said the paramedics were patient and calm with her, even while she was put on the stretcher and put into the ambulance. They gave her a full aspirin and nitroglycerin and reassured her that, even if it was indigestion, all would be well.

It wasn’t long before Steiger realized a heart attack had been on its way, that she had restricted blood flow and her artery was closing up.

“It wasn’t an attack, but it was pain, and that’s what causes the pain,” she said.

Even at the hospital, Steiger remained in denial about having a heart attack. She had had so relatively few symptoms or warning signs.

“But I did have family history, because my dad had a heart attack when he was my age, and his dad died at a young age of a heart attack,” she said. “I should’ve been paying attention, instead of slipping into denial mode.”

Steiger spent 10 days in the hospital, and now has resumed all of her normal activities, which include playing with her grandchildren and traveling with her husband.

Most of her family members, friends, acquaintances and even her entire bridge-card group has had physicals since witnessing Steiger’s event.

“They say, ‘If it can happen to Sharon, it can happen to anyone,’” she said. “But I think people don’t want to bother the emergency crews, especially women. They don’t want them to think that you’re overreacting.”

Because she acted quickly, Steiger will continue doing the things she loves. This year, she and her husband Alan will take Alan’s mother on a cruise to see the tulips in Holland.

“My life could’ve turned out so differently,” she said. n

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