Woman learns ignoring signs, symptoms won’t make illnesses go away

In hindsight, Billie-Marie Morrison realized she should have gone to her cardiologist after she couldn't catch her breath while dancing at a Fourth of July party last year. But she thought it was her asthma.

Around Thanksgiving, when her grandfather was seriously ill, she had trouble sleeping and horrible shortness of breath. She started sleeping sitting up and gurgled "like an old man's dying gurgle." Again, it must be asthma and stress or an allergic reaction to something. Her cough was getting worse, her chest was heaving, but she calculated a logical explanation for every symptom.

In mid-December, pressured by two friends, she went to a walk-in clinic, where she was diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia and prescribed antibiotics.

Before Christmas she started gaining weight. "I looked like I was pregnant. I didn't realize it was all water. I thought I was overdoing the chocolate."

Of course, it was the season for everyone to get run down and sick, so when she was tired and didn't want to eat, she thought it was normal. Except it felt like she had an elephant on her chest when she slept. No pain, just pressure.

"All this time, I'm thinking I'm healthy, I'll be fine, I have work to do," said the product liability and medical malpractice attorney with Craig Kenny & Associates.

At 42, she didn't smoke. She exercised and ate right but worked 80 hours a week.

She went from sleeping six hours a night to sleeping 11 hours a night, falling asleep with her laptop at 7 p.m.

Right after Christmas, the radiology report from her clinic visit was available. It said she probably had congestive heart failure and heart disease.

That's when Billie-Marie called her cardiologist. (She has one because she had a heart valve incident in 2002.)

He ordered tests, but it was going to take a week to obtain insurance approval. By then she was scheduled for a one-week office retreat on a cruise to Mexico. It was work, so she went. But she was so weak she couldn't carry her own luggage.

Once home, she was having trouble breathing and went to her pulmonologist for breathing treatments. The same day, the cardiologist put a monitor on her for a battery of tests.

"I'm not feeling pain. I'm still not thinking it's a heart problem. It had to be the lungs."

By this time, she had been sleeping sitting up for two months. Inspector Clouseau would call that a clue.

She did her heart tests Jan. 20, and that evening her cardiologist admitted her to Sunrise Hospital. His diagnosis was devastating. Her heart disease was cardiomyositis. Her heart was pumping at 10 percent of capacity, and only half the heart was pumping. She should be dead and could be a future candidate for a heart transplant. And she still had pneumonia.

She's taking a conservative approach for a few months, waiting to see how reducing stress and new medications will work, rejecting a surgeon's proposal of a defibrillator.

Her heart is now pumping 20 percent of what it should. Her goal is 35 percent. But there are circles under her eyes, and she's pale. She's lost 20 pounds. As she spoke, suddenly her breath caught. It's a slight sound, but scary.

"I should have gone to my cardiologist in July. It wouldn't have changed the diagnosis, but it would have prevented the damage I've done to my heart since then," Billie-Marie said. "We don't care about ourselves enough. We should treat our bodies as if they're the bodies of someone we care about, a child, a husband, a grandparent."

For seven months, Billie-Marie Morrison (no relation) was the classic woman in denial. No longer.

"I feel so lucky. I could have had brain damage," she said. "I'm lucky with my doctor. I'm lucky I have strong support at work and with my friends and family."

Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 cause of death for women. The American Heart Association's "Go Red for Women" program teaches women that their symptoms for potential heart attacks are different than men's. Major symptoms prior to women's heart attacks: unusual fatigue, sleep disturbance, shortness of breath, indigestion and anxiety.

Self-diagnosis isn't the answer. Just ask Billie-Marie, who had all the symptoms but indigestion ... but just knew it was her asthma.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison/.