Page 6 - RVO What Women Want Feb 2016

6VV • What Women Want • An Advertising Supplement to the River Valley & Ozark Edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette • Sunday, February 7, 2016
EILISH PALMER / CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER Monica Pinkett of Conway, who turned 44 in June, had a heart attack in August. Pinkett, a wife and mother of two, said she put herself on the back burner for a long time, but the scare
made her re-evaluate and change her lifestyle. February is American Heart Month.
‘Just LISTE’N to your body
Conway woman has heart attack at 44; commits to changes
BY TAMMY KEITH SENIOR WRITER
Monica Pinkett of Conway doesn’t like to draw attention to herself, which is why she quietly asked a co-worker to take her to the emergency room one day when she was having severe pain.
It’s why she told people who sent her text messages not to worry as she sat waiting at the hospital.
It’s why she almost didn’t agree to tell her story of having a heart attack at age 44.
“But I thought, ‘If I can just help one woman, it will be worth it,’” Pinkett said. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, and one in three women die from heart disease or stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
“I’ve heard that all my life. You think about that — one in three,” she said, her tone incredulous.
Her heart attack occurred almost six months ago, but the memories and emotion are still fresh.
Pinkett dropped off her then 6-year-old daughter, Sloan, to the first day of school on Aug. 17, 2015, at Jim Stone Elementary School. Then Pinkett went to work as usual as a receptionist at Crain Buick GMC in Conway.
“I kept having this knife-piercing pain between my shoulders,” she said.
Pinkett said she tried to stretch out the pain, and she recalled she had experienced similar pain before she had her gallbladder removed. The pain got worse.
“It was making me mad,” she said. “It wouldn’t go away; it kept getting stronger.”
Although the idea that she was having a heart attack never crossed her mind, she said, “I have enough sense to know it’s not normal.”
Pinkett took a co-worker aside and asked the woman not to make a big announcement, but Pinkett asked the woman to drive her to the emergency room.
All Pinkett’s tests were normal, but she waited to see the doctor. “I was miserable,” she said. More tests showed that she was having a heart attack.
“Within seconds, they had nitroglycerin under my tongue,” Pinkett said.
She was in the hospital for five nights. A small blood vessel was “completely closed off,” she said. An arteriogram showed “everything looked good except that one area.” She said the incident was considered a mild heart attack.
Pinkett was thankful it wasn’t worse, but she became depressed.
“I battled that,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m 44 years old, and I have these two kids.”
She and her husband, Mark, also have a son, Greyson, 17. Pinkett makes no bones about it: “My children are my life; they are my world,” she said. Her son plays baseball for Conway High School, and her daughter is “sassy” and makes life fun, she said.
Although her parents haven’t had heart problems, Pin- kett said, her mother’s three siblings all have to some degree. Pinkett knew she had to change her lifestyle. She’d been down this road before. She was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2012 and lost more than 40 pounds, but it crept back on. Pinkett said she had high cholesterol, and
she didn’t exercise.
“I totally lost focus,” she said. “I put myself on the back
burner for so long.”
Her heart attack changed everything. “I had to stop
and realize I had to take care of me,” she said.
Pinkett, who said she suffers from anxiety, said she had
to get mentally prepared to make big changes.
“The process is starting,” she said, sitting in an office at the dealership. “Monday, Jan. 4, I started a diet-and-ex-
ercise program.”
Pinkett said she pulled out a diet plan she got a few