How do you forget the letter H?

Discomfort or pain in the chest is the most common symptom of a heart attack in both men and women. However, discomfort in other areas of the upper body, as well as shortness of breath, nausea and lightheadedness are more likely to appear in women than in men.

Stroke symptoms also differ in men and women. While sudden numbness of the face, arm or leg, sudden confusion, trouble seeing and loss of balance or coordination can be seen in both men and women, sudden face and limb pain, hiccups, nausea, general weakness and shortness of breath are more common in women. Kaela was no exception.

A hole in her heart

Seven hours and countless tests later, the doctors could not figure out why Kaela was having so much trouble with her left arm and leg. That’s when a nurse walked in with a stroke test.

To Kaela’s irritation and frustration, the exam involved some basic personal questions and motor function tests, which she passed. Questions like “Where were you born?” and “What is the year?” made Kaela feel like her intelligence was being tested, rather than her symptoms.

The doctors then decided to take a magnetic resonance imaging scan, more commonly known as an MRI.  An MRI scan uses timed radiowave pulses to make detailed pictures of different tissues in the body.  These scans can show tumors developing, damage due to bleeding and, in Kaela’s case, where brain tissue had suffered from a lack of oxygen due to a stroke.

For Kaela, Scheidell, Go Red and other cardiovascular disease awareness proponents, the generic symptoms make it challenging to educate the masses about prevention.

“If I had known what the symptoms of a stroke were, and I had felt them right away in the morning, I could have gone in and gotten the medicine and things could have been a lot different,” Kaela says. “But… not knowing what it was, was very hard.”

Since Kaela did not fall within any of the normal risk categories, determining the cause of her stroke was important in ensuring she did not have another. Doctors eventually discovered Kaela had a birth defect known as a patent foramen ovale, or a hole in her heart. The causes of PFOs are unknown, but it is a relatively common and often benign condition that occurs when a small, flap-like opening between the right and left chambers of the heart fails to close. In Kaela’s case, a clot formed somewhere in her body, possibly in her leg though her doctors are unsure, due to complications from birth control or a possible clotting disorder. The clot then traveled through the hole in her heart to her brain.

Between the stroke and her heart surgery, Kaela endured months of treatment to regain the full use of her left arm and leg, while also preparing for surgery to fix the hole in her heart. She says the most difficult part of those months was the bi- and tri-weekly visits to the doctors, who would regularly draw blood to monitor blood-thinning medications that alone are dangerous enough to cause death.

“My arms looked like I was a heroin addict because they were just black and blue,” she says of the endless blood tests.  Meanwhile, she received differing opinions from doctors to determine whether she should have heart surgery at such a young age.

At the recommendation of a doctor and close family friend, Kaela ultimately underwent a trial surgery to close the hole in her heart. Her recovery from the surgery was quick: she had her non-open-heart surgery the Friday before Thanksgiving and was able to attend class the following Tuesday. She even returned to dancing at St. Norbert the following January.

Both Kaela and Scheidell work together to promote and participate in Go Red events, sharing stories and spreading awareness of cardiovascular diseases. But while precautionary measures — which include eating healthier, exercising and not smoking or drinking in excess — are things people should already be doing, encouraging them is difficult.

Still, Scheidell is confident that awareness and prevention programs are making a difference.

“I know we’re getting there,” she says of their efforts.

When put in context with the vast number of women who have suffered from cardiovascular diseases, Kaela’s story is an exceptional one. A fatal heart condition in combination with possible medication or clotting disorders led her to have a stroke at the young age of 19. What is more exceptional is that Kaela suffered little lasting damage from her stroke and heart surgery and survived to make positive lifestyle changes and promote awareness of these diseases.

“I was so fortunate that they kept doing more tests to figure if something else is wrong, because even I wanted to go home,” she says of her experience.  “…I didn’t even know what a stroke was and now it seems like it’s happening too often.  It really made me realize that this is a big issue.”