Jody Knack

Living proof of the need for awareness.

"Your heart's fine, don't worry."

The cardiologist's reassuring words put Jody Knack's mind at ease. Her relief, however, was short-lived. Over the next several months, as the intermittent pain in her chest became more frequent and severe, she eventually would come to realize that physicians don't always have the right answers.

Knack, a 51-year-old grandmother from Aurora, Illinois, is living proof that the medical community and the general public need to become much better educated about heart disease. Her chilling story began in January 2000.

"I had chest pains radiating to my jaw, but all the tests indicated everything was fine," says Knack. "They said I probably had acid reflux and sent me to the GI [gastrointestinal] lab."

Knack tried 2 medications, but neither helped. Another doctor wondered if maybe the pain was all in her head. On February 21, her first day at a new job, she again felt shooting pain through her chest, arms, and jaw and began to sweat profusely. When the symptoms did not let up, she went to an emergency room, where she began vomiting. Since she already had been diagnosed as having a GI problem, she had an ultrasound, which showed stones in her gallbladder, and surgery was scheduled for early next morning.

Knack was on a morphine drip and felt horrible, so she and her husband insisted she stay overnight. As part of the admission process, she was given a chest x-ray and ECG.

"The hospital technician started screaming for help, and before I knew it my room was full of people," says Knack. "We didn't know what was going on."

She was rushed by ambulance to a hospital that had a catheterization lab, where angiography revealed a 95% blockage in one of her coronary arteries. Fortunately, treatment was effective, although her heart now has only 50% of its normal pumping strength.

"They told me only 2% of patients survive heart attacks of this severity. I feel very blessed," says Knack.

Through her efforts in forming the support group for heart attack survivors at her local hospital, Knack became involved with WomenHeart, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the early detection, accurate diagnosis, and proper treatment of heart disease.

Through WomenHeart and at Her Heart Community events, Jody shares her story, with the hopes of empowering people to learn how the symptoms and warning signs of heart attacks affect women's bodies so differently than men's.

Jody Knack is a WomenHeart patient advocate. For information about WomenHeart, visit womenheart.org.