Heart patient urges others not to ignore symptoms

We think  of most heart disease patients as male but women can have Coronary Artery Disease, too.

“My parents both had high cholesterol but lived into their late 90s,” says former elementary school principal Marilyn Alley. “I was told I had high cholesterol when I was 26 and also at regular health screening but I blew it off.”

“I was tired, out of energy and wasn’t sleeping well,” she comments.  “I wasn’t listening to the extreme fatigue I was feeling.”

“She came to the office and had an abnormal EKG,” says Freeman Interventional Cardiologist Dr. John Cox.

“That’s the reason we didn’t feel it was safe for her to go home,” he continues. “We went right to the hospital and a heart catheterization.

Dr. Cox  used a stent to open one artery and a balloon to clear another

Since her heart catheterization, Alley says she is now exercising, going to cardiac rehab and taking cholesterol medication.

Coronary artery disease is the most common type of the illness, killing more than 360- thousand people in 2019. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 18 million adults over age 20 have Coronary Artery Disease.