Sentara nurse suffers heart attack while walking on her treadmill
She sees patients every day at Sentara RMH Vascular Specialists. On January 6, 2025, she became a patient herself.
“Yes, cardiovascular.”
Stapleton exercises daily and takes strenuous hikes with her children. Just days before her 50th birthday, she was walking on her treadmill when she felt chest pain and a strange sensation in her left arm.
“It felt like when you hit your elbow, really hard,” said Stapleton. “That funny bone type of pain while I was exercising.”
Don’t second guess it—get the tests
“In urgent care, I learned that an EKG only captures what’s going on with your heart for the few seconds that the monitor is on,” Stapleton remarked. “If someone’s having cardiac symptoms, it’s extremely important that they get bloodwork drawn.”
She knew she needed to get to the hospital right away.
“I told my husband, ‘It would be irresponsible to not go to the emergency room.’ Those were my exact words.”
Stapleton does not have a medical history of high blood pressure or cardiac concerns.
She’s active, her body mass index (BMI) is normal, and she doesn’t have any chronic health issues.
“So logically, a person in my situation would think there’s no way I’m having a heart attack.”
With those symptoms, getting checked out is the only way to know for sure.
Heart attacks signs vary
“It can present with different kinds of pains and aches,” said Dr. Amir Eslami, interventional cardiologist at Sentara RMH Cardiology Specialists. “Everyone’s different. Heart attacks often present differently in women than men.”
“That’s why women get misdiagnosed and treated later in life,” Dr. Eslami added.
Stapleton’s chest pain was not severe, but the other symptoms prompted the visit to the emergency department.
“It was my arm. And then later, when we were driving to the hospital, the pain radiated up into my jaw and upper back.”
When Stapleton got to the hospital, her blood pressure and initial EKG were normal and stayed normal. But her bloodwork revealed an issue.
“A lab test called troponin, which measures inflammation in the heart, was up,” Stapleton remarked.
Dr. Amir Eslami
The cath lab team assembles
A few hours passed with more tests and more pain. The care team decided Stapleton needed cardiac catheterization. A winter storm had arrived, and the cath lab team was called in.
“We’d had a lot of snow and ice, and I was concerned about people driving,” said Stapleton. “The nurse practitioner told me, ‘That’s their job. That’s what they’re here to do,’ which was the advice that I would give a patient in my situation.”
“That night was our big snowstorm for the season,” added Dr. Eslami. “We mobilize fairly quickly for a heart attack and are here within 30 minutes.”
As she waited, Stapleton could not shake the thought of how a healthy, active person could be having a heart attack. In a few moments, reality was setting in.
Vessels ‘decided to just unravel’
Once Dr. Eslami accessed Stapleton’s heart through her wrist, in real time, she witnessed on the video screen what the cath lab team was seeing—and it was not good.
“Shortly after he accessed the left side of my heart, I felt an extremely bad pain in my chest,” Stapleton said. “I was having a hard time holding still. That was probably the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”
Vessels on the left side of her heart had torn, known as a dissection.
“That entire left system decided to just unravel, kind of like paper mâché,” Dr. Eslami recalled. “It just unraveled and looked like a tornado. The blood flow becomes compromised in that part of the heart muscle.”
Stapleton suffered a spontaneous coronary artery dissection, also called SCAD.
“You have to put wires on those vessels below them quickly, do whatever you have to do to pack up those dissection plants,” Dr. Eslami said. “It’s like the paint coming off the wall, and you have put it back together.”
Never ignore or dismiss your symptoms
Dr. Eslami said the lesson from this event is when in doubt, come into the hospital and get checked out.
“It’s so much better than staying at home, something catastrophic happening, and then having to live with the consequences and all the ‘what ifs’ later on,” said Dr. Eslami.
Stapleton agrees. That approach saved her life.
“Even if you’re fit, even if you’re healthy, even if you’re relatively young, if you have chest pain, arm pain, jaw pain, get it checked out in the emergency room,” Stapleton remarked. “They can do all the testing that’s needed. I’m very thankful to the team at Sentara. They took good care of me.”
Stapleton was discharged a day before turning 50 and celebrated her birthday at home with her family.
She wants women to listen to their bodies and to never brush off their symptoms.
“Moms, nurses, wives. We're all busy. We all tend to put ourselves last,” Stapleton noted. “We don't want to make a big deal about things that are going on with ourselves, but you need to take this seriously. It's important.”
By: Bob Grebe