Holly Elder of Tellico Village escaped her third brush with death recently, unknowingly surviving a severe heart attack, and she is currently planning a heart health awareness campaign for residents of the Village, particularly women.
Elder and her husband, Joel, worked as Central Intelligence Agency officers in Washington, D.C., and overseas for 13 years, and the Elders moved to the Village in 2009.
Holly Elder first saw a glimpse of possible death upon suffering from toxemia during her first pregnancy in 1987 while living in Australia. In 2007, Elder nearly died from a brain aneurysm during a flight to Las Vegas to celebrate the couple’s 25th wedding anniversary.
Elder’s third brush with death came in the form of a heart attack while playing golf. The symptoms were abnormal from what most people, primarily men, experience. So she ignored the warning sign and now deals with the repercussions.
“To me, it still feels like surreal,” Elder said. “It just feels like it happened to somebody else. It didn’t happen to me.”
On Oct. 9, Holly awoke with a migraine and nausea, but chose to continue plans to take a boating trip with friends. A bout of what she thought was indigestion kicked in while riding on the lake. After arriving home, she visited Fort Loudoun Medical Center to get a shot for a migraine and was surprised when the doctor asked her to have an electrocardiogram. Elder said her family history showed no signs of heart problems.
The doctor told Holly her enzyme levels were more than 100 times past the normal rate, and she had suffered a severe heart attack. Elder moved to the critical care unit at FLMC to be transported to Parkwest Medical Center in Knoxville upon stabilization. At Parkwest, she met cardiologist Dr. Naresh Mistry, who performed a heart cauterization revealing Elder to have had takotsubo cardiomypathy or broken heart syndrome.
“Dr. Mistry thinks that it probably happened back at the golf course because it was just so severe,” Elder said. “I should have called an ambulance right then and there. I just think we have to change our attitude and our mind setting when we’re sick. ... If I had done that, maybe I would not be sitting here today with my heart severely damaged.”
Broken heart syndrome, recently discovered in Japan, occurs mostly in women who have experienced severe trauma like the loss of a loved one or divorce, Elder said.
Holly sat by her brother’s side for a week in May as he had his leg amputated, but Elder said Mistry felt that did not count enough as a traumatic experience. The only other episode Elder could imagine would cause a heart attack was while she was playing golf not long before her boat trip.
Holly said she became tired and had difficulty walking, but assumed it to be a bad day because she was attending the gym three times per week. A couple of days later, the same problem occurred on the course, only worse. Elder watched her partners finish the game, and despite not being able to take but a couple of steps at a time, Holly did nothing to address the issue.
Holly said some of the signs men experience from heart disease include feeling the weight of an elephant on one’s chest, pain and numbness of limbs and drooping of the face, none of which she had.
“For a man, that is a good chance you’re having a heart attack,” Elder said. “I didn’t feel that. ... With women, we just put everything off.”
Holly is currently attending rehabilitation sessions at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center in Knoxville.
Her heart will take six more months to heal, she said. Elder said the point of getting her story out is so that women learn to not be embarrassed that they need help or medical attention and to not ignore warning signs. She plans to help teach about warning signs and awareness to fellow golfers with Jeff Harrington, Toqua Golf Course head golf professional.
Harrington said Holly plays for the Lady Linksters nine-hole golf league at Toqua, and when she brought the idea of creating an awareness campaign to “tip off” golfers of heart attack symptoms, Harrington happily joined the cause.
“We just hope to educate not only the women golfers in the club and the local area but the male golfers as well, to let them know the symptoms since this is kind of a unique medical situation, and I’m not sure a lot of people would recognize the symptoms,” Harrington said.
Since being released from her hospitalization, Elder joined the Go Red for Women campaign with the American Heart Association and hopes to partner with the Knoxville chapter to raise awareness about the broken heart syndrome across East Tennessee.
Holly hopes her awareness campaign helps prevent other women from experiencing heart damage.
“You just don’t think it’s going to happen to you,” Elder said. “I’m just so mad at myself because I didn’t call the ambulance. We go through menstrual cramps, and we go through all that stuff. ... You come last. You’ve got to take care of everybody else. Women really need to take charge of their health, and don’t be embarrassed.”
