Heart Attack on the Beach n No, it’s not the latest frou-frou cocktail nor is it breathtaking eye candy view over a backdrop of glistening water as the sun shines and your toes twinkle in warm, tropical sand.
Instead, it was pain radiating down the arm of a 39-year-old North St. Louis County woman as she and eight of her buddies were enjoying an ocean-side lobster meal in the Bahamas last June.
And what did she do? She kept quiet and kept on eating her lobster n with butter. That is n enjoying the ocean, rich foods as heart muscle wastes away.
“I began to start feeling weak and lethargic and I just kept eating my lobster and laying on the beach because whatever was going to happen was going to happen and I was going to face the music,” said LaQuisha Ebegbodi.
“I kind of didn’t want to tell anybody because I was all the way away from home and in the Bahamas, they are not touching me,” she explained.
Foreign medical treatment phobia aside, Ebegbodi was more worried about spoiling everyone’s “getting their groove on” trip than saving her own then 5 nfoot-4-inch, diabetic, 250-pound, obese frame.
“No one noticed anything,” she said.
After about 30 minutes, the pain went away, but the fatigue and weakness lingered.
Ebegbodi returned to St. Louis about three days after her incident on the beach. Back on U.S. soil with no calls to her own doctor or reaching out through 9-1-1.
“I didn’t feel bad anymore. I figured I was okay and it was just something I was going through,” the certified nurse assistant said.
That reprieve lasted several weeks until one day in early August while at work at Lazarus Living Center in South St. Louis County.
“I was really tired that day and just couldn’t get myself together,” she said. “They checked my oxygen saturation and the norm is 94 to 100 percentile. My oxygen saturation was 80. 9-1-1! If you get below 94 and you are an active adult, there is a serious problem somewhere.”
She went to the St. John’s Mercy Heart and Vascular Hospital, where every test confirmed what she thought would never happen to her (although her unhealthy lifestyle and family medical history may have pointed otherwise).
“A CAT scan n my lungs were filled with fluid n I was in congestive heart failure and my feet were very swollen, and it’s one of the first signs of congestive heart failure,” she said. “Then they did an echo cardiogram. What that does it measures the function of your heart and they could see that one side of my heart was very, very weakened and that’s why I was feeling so bad.”
Ebegbodi said she was too weak to do the treadmill stress test so she had to undergo a chemical one instead.
“And the last test that they did was the cardiac catheterization n when they go through your groin and shoot a dye through you and see if you have any blockage. When I woke up they told me I had four blockages. Mine were so extensively blocked that bypass surgery was the only option.”
Ebegbodi had quadruple bypass surgery August 7, about two months after her heart attack on the beach.
“They took an artery from my left inner wrist and they took one from my left lower leg and two arteries from my mammary (breast) glands from my right side,” she described. “It was actually so surreal n it was like I was dreaming. Within 48 hours, I had had four tests and the bypass surgery. I didn’t even have time to decide whether I wanted to live the life of a cardiac patient. At the time I didn’t love anything but good food.”
Now good food is a new menu of baked chicken, fish, salad and fruit.
“I try to eat oatmeal to keep my cholesterol down. Beforehand I was at 400-something total cholesterol and now I’m at 155. But it’s not easy,” she said, adding she now has a sure-fire cure for personal food cravings.
“I look at the incision between my breasts and somehow I just don’t have the taste anymore.”
Following the operation, Ebegbodi went to cardiac rehabilitation for a few weeks. She admits to dropping out because being the youngest participant among silver-haired survivors was too depressing for her. Instinctively, she wanted to help them while realistically, she couldn’t help herself.
Leaving cardiac rehab is not recommended, but Ebegbodi chose to go at it alone.
“I got rid of one of my bedroom sets and made it into a workout room. I have a treadmill, a bike and a few other pieces of equipment n all that have been approved by my doctor,” Ebegbodi said.
She uses them at least three to four times a week n normally 30 to 45 minutes.
“I have to make myself sit down because I have too much energy,” Ebegbodi said. “Now I have to make myself lay down—it’s just amazing.”
Ebegbodi recently won the 14th Annual Quality of Life Caregivers Award in the nursing category by the Long Term Care Ombudsman Program of St. Louis.
She was nominated by Lu Westhoff n the administrator at Lazarus, who said “she just makes life special for all of the residents there.”
Just a few months after her quadruple heart bypass, Ebegbodi has lost 50 pounds with a goal to lose another 40.
She is also looking ahead to next year, when the nursing student expects to become an RN.
Her cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Jeanne Cleveland, encouraged her to share her story with others to prevent them from going through what she experienced.
Ebegbodi was lucky. She survived that heart attack on the beach.
In addition to sharing her story with American readers, Ebegbodi plans to attend the Annual Women’s Heart Health Fair at West County Mall, which takes place February 6 -7.
