The 'Rosie' star noticed signs of heart attack but thought they were not a big deal until she eventually consulted a cardiologist and was rushed to ER for a life-saving surgery.
- Sep 22, 2023
AceShowbiz - Rosie O'Donnell "should've" lost her life after ignoring the symptoms of a massive heart attack. The "A League of Their Own" actress wants to highlight the signs of a problem for women after she suffered a major cardiac arrest, known as a widowmaker, back in 2012, but initially brushed off her symptoms and took two days before she sought medical help.
"I should've died..The truth of the matter is, I had this heart attack on a Monday at 10 am," she told hosts Raven-Symone and Miranda Pearman-Maday on "The Best Podcast Ever".
"I get home, I can hardly walk upstairs. I take two baby aspirin, I go to sleep, I wake up and my family goes, 'You have to go to the doctor.' I waited until the next day. So it had it Monday and on Wednesday I saw a doctor."
Rosie, now 61, found her arms hurt after she'd helped a stranger to her feet and later told one of her sons she was "so tired" after he told her she looked "like a ghost."
She Googled "women's heart attack signs" and noted she had "a few of them" but wasn't worried as it didn't "seem" like she was suffering a major medical episode.
Eventually, the former talk show host saw a cardiologist rather than the emergency room as she still didn't think there was anything seriously wrong, so was stunned when they told her she was having a "massive heart attack" and rushed her to the ER.
She recalled, "I was like, 'Wait, wait, what?!' I couldn't believe it. And then I came to find out that the symptoms for a woman having a heart attack are very different than the symptoms for men having heart attacks. Yet what we see on TV are always men having heart attacks."
Doctors discovered Rosie had a complete blockage of the left anterior descending artery (LAD) and operated on her to put in a stent in order to save her life.
The "Wide Awake" actress feels "really lucky" to have survived and said it changed her relationship with her body. She said, "It forced me into my body and to be in touch with my body in a way that I never had been."
"It made me aware of feelings. I can kind of dissociate and do the world from my head and just try to use my intellect and not really pay attention to my body, but this forced me to pay attention."
