CV Woman Advocates For Women’s Heart Health at US Capitol
photos courtesy of Michelle Sheely
Michelle Sheely is on a mission — to make sure no other women experience potentially fatal heart events like hers.
Sheely traveled to Washington D.C. with WomenHeart.org this month to convince as many members of Congress as possible that funding for women’s heart health must be a priority.
“I’m on a mission to save as many women as I can,” says Sheely, a longtime Castro Valley resident. “I don’t want any families and children to go through what mine did.”
Up until five years ago, Sheely thought she was healthy. She was a vegan “health food nut,” soccer player, and long-distance runner. But when she was 44, she started having chest pains. She saw a doctor, was told she had indigestion, and was sent home with Pepcid. Two days later, she was in the Emergency Room getting an EKG, which revealed a potentially fatal, unrecognized heart condition. She had open heart surgery that saved her life.
This is a common story, says Sheely. Women present different symptoms than men, and funding for women’s health lags behind that of men’s. Yet one in five women will die from heart disease in the U.S. – more than all cancers, diabetes, and stroke combined. To help change that, Sheely joined WomenHeart.org and became a WomenHeart Champion.
WomenHeart is a national patient-centered network that supports women diagnosed with heart disease. They also advocate for policies to fight for women’s heart health and care. The group was founded in 1999 by three women who had heart attacks in their 40s and who had faced obstacles such as misdiagnosis, inadequate treatment, and isolation. The organization now has hundreds of members nationwide.
Volunteers such as Sheely, who became WomenHeart Champions, also received extensive training through the Mayo Clinic on all aspects of women’s heart disease, plus advocacy and media training. They are community educators on this topic.
On February 4, Sheely joined 30 other WomenHeart Champions in Washington, D.C., to meet with members of Congress, asking that National Institute for Health (NIH) funding for women’s heart health be continued at its current level. Though funding is being cut at all levels now, Sheely says she received good responses when meeting with Congressman Ro Khanna and staff members from Congressman Eric Swalwell, Senator Adam Schiff, and Senator Alex Padilla’s offices.
“They had no idea it was such a big issue,” Sheely says.
Since February is Women’s Heart Health Month, Sheely would like everyone to keep the following in mind: there are 60 million women in the U.S living with heart disease; heart disease is the #1 killer of women in our country; and women between 35-55 are dying at the fastest rates due to lack of research, awareness, and education.
She also says that women may have very different symptoms of heart attack than men. These include mild chest pain, jaw pain, left arm pain, nausea, back pain that comes and goes, pain between the shoulder blades, and shortness of breath.
“Women may think they’re having a heart event, but when they slow down, the pain stops. In fact, that’s the signal to go to the ER, not a doctor’s office, because the ER is equipped to diagnose all sorts of heart problems. If you wait and go to a doctor’s office, it could be too late,” Sheely says.
For more information on WomenHeart.org, please see the website by that name. To contact Michelle Sheely, email michellesheely@gmail.com . She would be happy to speak to local groups about women's heart health.