Dr. Allison Rains' Cardiology Story

A day in the ER, it's it's, different every day. We usually see around one hundred and twenty patients a day in the ER. You never really know what you're gonna get. That was one of the things that drew me to the ER.

We have three children and we have twins that are twelve and then we have an eight year old who's in first grade.

Really not a second in the day, you know, to rest. Kind of every day we're going to bed, you know, ten or eleven o'clock getting up at four or five and nonstop, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

It was around four o'clock. My alarm went off. I got the snooze button a few times.

Finally, I set up in bed and immediately upon sitting up in bed, I developed a severe pain in the center of my chest. I described a kind of like a pressure almost as if I was in a vice.

She was kinda holding her chest, and she was very pale and and sweaty. I mean, you know, I could tell something was not right. So, yeah, I said, gosh. You look like you're having a heart attack.

I knew that morning that something was terribly wrong, and I was ready to go to the ER.

When doctor Allison Rains came, the EKG looked abnormal. The blood tests for heart attack were elevated, plus she had an ultrasound done of the heart that showed some abnormality in contractility, specifically of a particular region that alerted us all that there's a distinct possibility of a heart attack occurring, and that prompted a cardiac catheterization where we identified a blockage and treated her with angioplasty.

As a physician, you never imagine yourself being the patient, but in the moment, I knew my husband trusted his partner and always talked highly of doctor Bose.

And doctor Bose was great. He talked to me throughout the entire procedure, explaining what he was doing, when he found the blockage.

He relayed that information to me and explained what he was doing to fix it and so I knew that I was in the best hands possible.

It was surreal, you know, with your wife back there and sorry.

Waiting in the recovery area.

I think right from the start, she had the ingredients of her timely care, and I think that's really important in, identifying heart disease, especially in women who sometimes may present in somewhat unusual ways. Chest pain is the most common presentation in women having a heart attack. But having said that, the atypical presentation such as arm pain, back pain, sweating, feeling weak, being short of breath, feeling dizzy, passing out is far more in women what we call atypical symptoms compared to men. Seek care early because delayed care can result in devastating complications.

As we say related to a heart attack, that time is muscle.

The months prior to all this, I had been having some odd symptoms. Ultimately, they diagnosed me with lupus, and they felt that I developed inflammation around the coronary vessel, and that had probably led to some compression of the vessel and that narrowing in that vessel led to a clot formation, which caused the heart attack.

Taking care of a colleague, especially who's a health care provider, is almost a multiplier effect where she not only is doing better and doing well and come back to work, but also has taken the initiative to increase this knowledge of women and heart disease.

This phase and age of life that we're in where parents are busy and kids are busy, parents forget to take care of themselves.

You know your body. If something feels off, listen to your body.

Take the time for yourself.

It really puts things into perspective.

You kind of realize what's important in life and try to cut out some of the chaos and just focus on the important things.