CLEMMONS, N.C. — Teacher Frann Paige is urging others to be on the lookout for signs of heart disease.
Paige is an art teacher at Clemmons Elementary, and her students have become a part of her life.
“The love notes I get and the drawings I get every morning make my day,” said Paige, who was hospitalized in 2015 after a heart attack. “When I was sick in the hospital, I kept saying every day, I want to get back to my classroom. … It was the new normal, but I wanted to get back to what I thought was normal. I needed to get back with the kids.”
February is Heart Health Month, and the American Heart Association says cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women, claiming more lives than all cancers combined.
In June 2015, Paige’s life changed after a doctor’s appointment
“I got there very early. Doctors weren’t really ready yet. And with that, the nurse started taking vitals and within 5 minutes, a doctor ran on with a portable EKG machine and they called the ambulance at the same time. I already had a heart attack and was walking around with it for a few days,” she said.
It was a heart attack she didn’t know she had on the last day of school
“Started really Friday night. And I didn’t go to the doctor until the next Thursday. And the last thing I remember is being wheeled into an emergency room. And then I woke up a month later from an induced coma,” Paige said.
She had every symptom that should have been an alert, but she had an excuse for each one.
“I was pale. My excuse — it was summer. I was hot. My excuse was summer, wasn’t feeling well. The kids gave me something,” Paige said. “But if you take all these symptoms and add them up, I should have known better. I should have known to go to a doctor.”
And heart disease runs in her family.
“My father passed away at an early age of a heart attack. I have aunts with pacemakers. It should have been on my radar. It wasn’t,” Paige said.
Now, she’s urging women to be aware of the symptoms and to have their affairs in order.
“What I can tell you is take your body seriously and know your body,” she said. “Know if it’s not right and you are having more than one symptom.”
“I had a pain, but I had a pain in my jaw, so I made an appointment with my dentist,” Paige said. “I didn’t have a pain in my arm like men have.”
And now, to stay on top of her health, she has a defibrillator that helps regulate her heart, and she makes better decisions day to day.
Paige says some of the things she’s done to better her health are reducing sodium intake, cutting down on caffeine and exercising as much as she can.
The American Heart Association says Black and Hispanic women are disproportionately affected by heart disease and stroke.
As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are more likely than men to experience other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting and back or jaw pain.
Zyneria Byrd
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