Sarah Casalan Bittle, 49, recalls the symptoms of a widowmaker heart attack that she almost missed nearly two years ago in July 2022. The single mom of two boys remembers making burgers for dinner the night before, as her mother was in town visiting them. The next day, she found herself having some indigestion, which wasn't normal for her.
"I have an iron stomach, so I don't really get indigestion," she said. Still, she didn't think much of it and carried on with her day as usual. After she tucked her kids into bed and went to sleep, things began going downhill.
The mom shared that she woke up with nausea a few hours later. "I woke up thinking, 'Let's finally get this burger thing over with. If I'm going to be sick, fine. Then we'll get better,'" she said. But she never threw up.
For nearly 90 minutes, she simply sat on the bathroom floor expecting to vomit at any moment. "I laid down on the bathroom floor and progressively felt more nauseous and then a little sweaty," she said. "Nothing was happening, but I was feeling just gross."
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When she tried to take a shower, she realized that she couldn't get up. Panic set in. "I just didn't have the strength or the coordination to get off of the floor," she recalled. After forcing herself to stand up, she began experiencing some chest discomfort and shortness of breath.
She was able to make it to her mother to ask for help before falling unconscious for five minutes. Her mom immediately called an ambulance. “The last thing I remember — I don’t recommend it — was being defibrillated,” Sarah said. “I remember being electrocuted alive.”
Once at the hospital, it was revealed that she was having a heart attack. She had a 100% blockage in the main artery of the heart, which is what people call a widowmaker heart attack. She had a stent and small temporary heart pump placed by doctors, was intubated, and also placed on what is known as "the most intense form of life support that somebody can receive," according to the cardiologist who treated her, Dr. Bow "Ben" Chung, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.
"My family was told to say goodbye, that I didn't really have a lot of chance," Sarah recalls. "I was put on all forms of life support." She had multiple cardiac arrests in the hospital and doctors were afraid that not much of her brain function remained intact. She was placed on an emergency heart transplant list and transferred to the University of Chicago Medicine.
"Very miraculously, after what I understand to be a lot of craziness, my heart recovered to an extent where [they] thought, 'OK, maybe we don't need a transplant right now. Let's wake her up,'" she explained. After a few days, she was taken off ECMO and had the heart pump removed. But then, she developed blood clots in her right and left femoral arteries, cutting off circulation in her leg. After emergency surgery, her leg was saved and the medical staff were able to repair the arteries.
After that, Sarah set out on the road to recovery. She spent almost two weeks in the hospital, then another six weeks in outpatient rehabilitation, and 18 weeks in cardiac rehabilitation. She also had to wear a LifeVest for 90 days, which is a wearable defibrillator.
In February 2023, a tickle in her chest led her to have tests ordered by her doctor. They revealed that she had a 70% blockage in her main artery, which could have led to another heart attack if it wasn't caught. "It is unlikely that I would have survived had I had another heart attack of that matter outside of the hospital." After undergoing robotic cardiac surgery, she says she's doing "fantastic." "I will be a heart failure patient for the rest of my life, but my recovery is nothing short of remarkable."
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