Six years ago, Chantrise Holliman, then 45, woke up nauseated with chest discomfort. At first, she wondered if the previous night’s dinner had caused her to her feel queasy.
“I had a cheesesteak the night before and I just figured I shouldn’t have had the cheesesteak,” she told TODAY’s Hoda Kotb in a segment that aired on Feb. 1. “I was having a little bit of pressure in my chest but nothing particularly serious.”
As she tried walking downstairs to the kitchen to grab a ginger ale, she suddenly had to rush to the bathroom.
“I was immediately throwing up,” Holliman, now 51, from Savannah, Georgia, said. “I crawled back into the bed and my husband kind of looked at me and he said, ‘Are you OK?’”
She told him she was “fine,” and that she had a busy workday ahead of her. When he returned, he knew something was wrong.
“He came back and looked at me again and said, ‘Do I need to call an ambulance?’” Holliman said. “In my head I said, ‘No’ because I have 17 things I have to do today.' But ‘yes’ is what I said … I’m so thankful I said yes.”
Her health worsened when she arrived at the hospital where her heart stopped nine times. For a week after, she was in a coma.
When she woke, she learned that she experienced a widowmaker heart attack. A widowmaker heart attack occurs after someone experiences a full blockage of their left anterior descending artery, which is responsible for moving about half the body’s blood to the heart, according to New York-Presbyterian. A widowmaker is “immediately life-threatening,” the Cleveland Clinic says.
Symptoms of heart attacks and women
Dr. Tara Narula, NBC News medical contributor, said that it’s important that women pay attention to their bodies and seek help when they experience symptoms of heart attack. These can include:
- Chest pain
- A feeling of tightness, pressure or heaviness in the chest
- Nausea
- Indigestion
- Shortness of breath
- Feeling faint
- Jaw, shoulder or back pain.
“It’s so important to hear stories like this because many women think it has to be like I’m clutching my chest and falling to the ground like you see in the movies and it can be much more subtle,” Narula explained. “I’ve heard women say, ‘I feel like I have to take my bra off. It’s too tight.'”
Knowing the signs of a heart attack remains essential in encouraging women to seek care for treatment immediately.
“It’s really important to understand these symptoms,” Narula said. “(Heart disease) is the leading cause of death for women in this country. One woman every 80 seconds dies of cardiovascular disease.”
Life after a widowmaker
Holliman said that recovery was difficult. Before her heart attack, she was running five miles a day to train for a 10K. She regularly drank water and ate fruits and vegetables. Holliman believed she was healthy but later learned that her lupus can contribute to worsened cardiovascular health.
Holliman said recovery was challenging. While in the hospital after her heart attack, she experienced complications from infection that led to the amputation of her left toes, right leg and left leg. Her health caused her to struggle with her relationship with God.
“My faith was shot,” she said. “Everything that I thought I believed, I said, ‘Well none of this is real because how could this possible be happening to me if God is real?’"
A surrogate mother of hers gave her the scripture Jeremiah 29:11. That passage helped her see there was a future for her.
“That scripture saved my life because I made the decision,” Holliman said. “I said, ‘Well if there’s a plan for this, I have to run out and see what’s next.’”
The love and support of her now 26-year-old daughter, Astede, also aided Holliman’s recovery.
“She was giving me all the tough love that I have given her all these years and she wasn’t going to let me just waste away on the sofa,” she said.