In 2006, during the birth of my 3rd child, I suffered a coronary artery dissection.  I didn’t realise this at the time,  I thought my chest was a bit sore and I told the nurse, she came in with an ECG machine when I feeding my baby and I told her it wasn’t necessary – that it was probably my milk supply coming in.

The pain in my chest did not subside after I left the hospital, but I assumed it was to do with my milk supply. I had a maternity nurse come to my house to check that the baby was feeding properly and she assured me the baby was getting enough.

Six days after the birth, feeding the baby in the early hours of the morning I had a heart attack. It was a shooting pain that went up my right arm like an electric shock with a bang in my chest.  I didn’t know what it was, and I was very sleep deprived at the time so I put the baby back in his crib and went to sleep.

 The next morning (after I had driven my eldest – 6 year old – to school) I told my husband what had happened and he thought I should call the hospital.  The hospital told me to go to my GP.  My GP heard the story and sent me to the local Latrobe Hospital with suspected pulmonary embolism, this is when I had the EGC and it was discovered I had had a heart attack.

 The next day I was sent to Monash Medical Centre for an angiogram and this is when the dissection in two places was discovered.  I was kept in hospital for a week and given blood thinning medications.  They wanted me to take Warfarin but I wouldn’t take it because I was breast feeding – I had the baby with me in my room (the nurses loved him!) and sometimes he went to the maternity ward when I needed to rest.  I was fairly manic about breast feeding him and it was pretty annoying for the treating doctors.

 All of the doctors seemed perplexed about what had caused my heart attack.  They wanted to know if I had been a drug user or heavy smoker (i hadn’t).  My sister was doing a PhD at the time in statistical analysis of heart attacks and she sent the doctors an academic journal that was recently published in New York that was about Post Partum Coronary Dissection.

 A week later I had another angiogram and the dissection had become worse.  They thought the blood thinning medication my have contributed to this and they thought it was probably a good thing I hadn’t taken the Warfarin.  It was decided I needed to have a Triple Heart By-pass and they would use an artery in my arm and my mammary arteries.  They said I would not be able to breast feed my baby after the operation.  I was devastated about this but the professionals convinced me to was too great a risk, so I had the operation.

 When I finally got home and nursed my baby I could feel the “let down” so I put him on the boob and within a few weeks I was feeding him again but supplementing with a bottle at night – the doctors were amazed by this.

 I had some follow up visits with a Genetic team, checking out my children as well.  One of the Geneticists told me a few years later that she was in the room with the doctors when they were debating whether or not I should have the operation and she had argued that I should not have it, that it would heal itself in time.  I have often wondered about this.  The Genetic team considered Marfan and Ehlers Danlos Syndromes but I didn’t neatly fit into either of these classifications.  I am hypermobile , having needed shoulder reconstructions and had several hernia operations.  I have had check-ups with a Cardiologist every 5 years or so.  I was on Metoprolol and Aspirin for 15 years, and then just Aspirin.  I aim to be as fit and healthy and walk 10,000 steps most days.