One evening when Jonna Elzen went to bed, she felt restless and unable to sleep. It seemed odd but she figured it was simply stress and fatigue, although the tenderness in her chest was a little alarming. 

“It wasn’t pressure or heaviness,” Jonna, 49, recalled of the incident in 2005. “It was like someone had punched me in the chest.”

Even though Jonna works in the health care management field, as executive director of MetroCare Physicians, she wasn’t conscientious about her own health. In fact, she hadn’t had a check up in about eight years. 

“I talked to one of my board members and said that I had a really weird night,” she said. “He asked me what my cholesterol was and I didn’t know.”

Like many women, what Jonna didn’t realize is how prevalent heart disease is in females. Currently 8 million American women are living with the disease, and it is their leading cause of death.

Jonna’s colleague encouraged her to get an EKG. Normally she may have shrugged off getting checked out, but her instincts told her something wasn’t right. She went to Memphis Heart Clinic where the EKG was normal, and other tests were inconclusive, but they kept her overnight to schedule some morning screenings. The doctors decided to do a cardiac catheterization due to her family history – her father died of a massive heart attack at age 57. A heart cath is a procedure where doctors gauge blood flow in the heart by inserting a tube into a vein and injecting dye to view vessels in an X-ray. 

“That was the point where I thought I was foolish, like why am I doing this,” said Jonna. “I thought I was wasting so much money and resources.”  

It turned out her instincts were right. Jonna said as soonas the dye hit, she knew, because as it moved through her vessels she saw it stop. She had a severe blockage in the left main vessel, called an acute left main occlusion. This vessel provides two-thirds of the blood flow to the heart. She would not have survived a heart attack. 

“My father had his first heart attack when he was 42. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that. I smoked for 30 years, and I have been a yo-yo dieter my whole life,” Jonna said, adding that her grandfather and many of her aunts and uncles had heart disease. “Then when my dad was 57 he had a massive heart attack and died.  It was devastating, and I still didn’t do anything about the smoking. I didn’t even register who I was in this equation.”

She did exactly the right thing when she had her symptoms, explained her cardiologist at Memphis Heart Clinic, Stacy Smith, M.D. Fortunately, even though the initial tests results were unclear, her doctors took the symptoms seriously. 

“It’s common to miss a diagnosis without the right tests,”

Smith said. “The problem is it’s more challenging to diagnose heart disease in women.”

Tests can be inconclusive in females due to a variety of factors, one of which is that screening measurements were developed with men as subjects. Women may require further testing such as calcium scoring.

“If you’re concerned and you have a family history, you need to be screened,” she advised.

Jonna’s cardiothoracic surgeon, Ed Garrett, M.D., of Cardiovascular Surgery Clinic, remarked on the severity of her case, which is somewhat rare in women but is becoming more common, Garrett said, partly due to a stressful lifestyle and more women are smoking. 

Garrett sees plaque-filled hearts every day in his work, and the numbers of women with heart disease continue to increase. He estimated the increase at about 40 percent over the past decade. His advice to women: don’t think you’re too young, and don’t smoke.

“Arteries in women are smaller than they are in men. It 

takes less plaque to obstruct them,” he added. “If it takes less total plaque to stop up your arteries that means you can’t be too careful.”

Overall, she said, “Life is good. I take my meds, and I can’t stress that enough. My biggest struggle is the exercise, but I’m meticulous about my diet.” 

Jonna knows that her previously unhealthy lifestyle exacerbated her risk factors, and since her surgeries she has become an advocate for women’s heart health. She’s a volunteer for the heart support group with the American Heart Association and a member of WomenHeart, the National Coalition of Women with Heart Disease. She speaks at various community and education events.

“We need to know what our risk factors are, and that’s my message when I go out and talk to people,” she said. “When I see people buying a pack of cigarettes, I’m talking to them.  

“I feel God was generous with my life, and I went through the first one by grace,” Jonna continued. “That didn’t have to be my story, and I feel like it was because that’s what I’m supposed to get out and do.” 

Her message to women, “You know your body. Don’t ignore anything. If you don’t think people are listening to you, it’s okay to get somebody else to talk to. You have to take responsibility for yourself.  If you’re doing anything that you shouldn’t be doing, really take a minute to evaluate what your risk factors are, who you are, and don’t think this can’t happen.”

by Hollie Haynie

To learn more about women’s heart health, visit www.womenheart.com.  •