Erin O'Connell Peiffer ’83 wears a delicate silver chain around her neck with a heart-shaped charm. The heart rests atop a faded pink eight-inch-long scar that runs down her chest.

“My reminder of what I’ve been through,” says Peiffer as she holds up the charm, which is inscribed on the back “Celebrate 5th Year of Survival.” Five years have passed since, as Peiffer describes, surgeons cracked open her chest to perform a lifesaving heart bypass surgery.

Since then, Peiffer has made it her mission to educate women about preventing heart disease. She speaks to groups of women across the country and was featured on the cover of Merck’s “Your Health Now” magazine. Read it here: http://www.merck.com/yourhealthnow/volume2-3/

The 44-year-old mother of three doesn’t look like someone who suffered from congestive heart failure. She is a slim non-smoker who exercises regularly and eats well. Peiffer’s almond-colored eyes are alive with passion and laughter as she tells her story that is anything but funny.

In her 20s, doctors discovered Peiffer’s cholesterol hovered around 300. They treated her with statin drugs, and she exhibited no other symptoms for years. Until, one day while shopping, she felt heart spasms.

“When you’re waiting for your heart to start again, it feels like a lifetime even if it’s only a few seconds,” she said.

The strange feeling prompted her to get a checkup, but tests showed no abnormalities and doctors assured her she was perfectly healthy. She enrolled at a gym, and in 2001 found herself hunched over the edge of a pool in the middle of a water aerobics class, struggling to breathe and coughing up blood.

“Halfway through the class, I thought I swallowed water,” she says. “I felt a crackling in my ribs and was having trouble catching my breath. I had so overexerted my heart in the class, my lungs filled with fluid.”

Women exhibit heart disease differently from men. A study released this year from the National Institutes of Health found that in as many as 3-million women with coronary heart disease, cholesterol plaque spreads throughout the artery wall instead of turning into a major blockage. Common tests like the cardiac stress test would not detect a problem.

Peiffer drove to the hospital, but doctors sent her home, thinking she had a virus. When additional tests revealed a “blip” in her heart, they performed a cardiac catheterization – moving a thin plastic tube through the chambers of her heart in order to tell how well it pumps blood.

 “I flunked that royally. When I awoke, I knew something was wrong.”

With her husband in tears by her side, Peiffer woke up to the news that she had a 99-percent blockage in her left main coronary artery. Without surgery, she had only a 1- percent chance of living past four months. Just hours later, Peiffer was rushed to the operating room.

In America today, more women are dying of cardiovascular disease than from any other reason. According to the American Heart Association, only 13 percent of women view heart disease as a health threat, even though it kills nearly half a million women each year, about one per minute. Scarier still, 64 percent of women who died suddenly of coronary heart disease had no previous symptoms.

Peiffer woke up in a painful fog. For weeks, she was barely able to move, unable to do the most basic things. Her husband Bryan set a plastic lawn chair in the bathtub so he could wash her hair. He cared for their three children: 9-year old Evan, 6-year old Matthew and 4-year old Katherine. When the former telecommunications executive was forced to leave her job because of the illness, her husband, an engineer and former stay-at-home dad, went back to work to support a family of five.

“When you face your own mortality, the big house, the fancy car, it means nothing,” she said quietly, as her eyes looked far away.

Only her older son understood the severity of the surgery, the whirlwind of doctors and surgeons and tests. Middle son Matthew withdrew into silence. The youngest, Katherine, camped out on the floor next to her mother’s bed at night and worried that the doctors Peiffer frequently visited would keep her forever.

“I’m blessed to be home with my kids and grateful for the time I get to spend being a mom,” she says.

Recovering from heart-bypass surgery normally takes a few months, but Peiffer suffered complications from fluid building around her heart and lungs. She underwent several painful procedures to drain the fluid and spent the next year in and out of the hospital.

Peiffer’s heart disease was caused by a genetic flaw that caused her liver to crank out too much cholesterol. That’s why it’s critical, she says, to know your family history in order to understand your genetic risk of developing heart disease. Still, 80 percent of heart disease in women is preventable, according to a study by Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Harvard School of Public Health’s department of nutrition.

Women are more likely to ignore their symptoms, says Peiffer, recalling a friend who, in the middle of a heart attack, sat up on the gurney as emergency medics lifted her into an ambulance and said, “I can’t do this now, I’m having a dinner party tonight!”

Because they tend to be family caretakers, women too often put their own needs last, according to Peiffer. Her mission is to educate women to put their health first, in order to be there for their family in the long term.

“There are other women who didn’t get the chance, and I’m speaking for them because I could have been one of them.”

Peiffer believes there is a long-standing assumption that heart disease mainly affects men. In fact, the tests used to identify and treat heart disease were studied primarily for men, not women, according to the Mayo Clinic. That’s why Peiffer urges women to listen to their gut.

“If you believe there may be a problem, demand an EKG and a blood test to make sure you aren’t having a heart attack.”

The keys to survival are early detection, accurate diagnosis and proper treatment.

Peiffer tires easily and naps every day. She is vigilant about her diet and incorporates exercise and relaxation into the daily routine. Still, she swallows 15 different drugs daily and has a device implanted near her collarbone to monitor her heart. Every week, she visits the doctor.

Now, this self-described Humpty Dumpty is trying to put herself back together. After attending a symposium at the Mayo Clinic and meeting female heart patients as young as 24, Peiffer began a new mission educating women about heart disease.

“Life is going to present you curveballs and you’re going to deal with it because you don’t have a choice,” Peiffer says matter-of-factly. “I believe I was given a second chance for a reason. I’m here for my kids and to educate other women. If one woman hears me and connects to something I am telling her, that is a huge success.”

Resources on heart disease:
www.americanheart.org/
www.womenheart.org
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/heart-disease/HB99999
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/hearttruth/index.htm