At 4am, I woke up in the dark with crushing chest pain, nausea, shortness of breath, and pain radiating to my left arm and jaw. I was terrified. You would think that such symptoms would lead to a quick diagnosis. But as a young woman in my 20s who looked “healthy,” my journey to finally being diagnosed with Microvascular Angina was anything but easy.

First came the headaches – worse than migraines – then the shortness of breath and having to lay down after crossing the room.

Five months after my symptoms began, I was diagnosed with a 99% blockage in my LAD and 99% blockage in an artery branch off that.

I was stented and, in doing so, they jailed an artery. I was given Metoprolol and I got worse.

I underwent another Angiogram, and all was fine, so they changed my medication and I began to use my Nitro more.

March 3rd, 2021 was the day that changed everything. At 55, I had a busy counselling practice and a few other projects on the go. The pandemic was causing anxiety for many of my clients and in my private life. I had a lot of stress of my own: there were safety issues in the building where I lived, and I was looking for a new apt. Despite this, I thought I was handling it well. I was fairly healthy, I walked daily, ate well, meditated and didn’t smoke or drink.

I started to experience heavy fatigue towards the end of 2020 but told myself it was normal considering all that was going on in the world.