My ‘heartburn’ agony was a heart ATTACK
MUM’S WARNING AFTER PAIN & TRAGEDY
AMUM has spoken of her shock at suffering a heart attack at 40 – then losing her mum two years later to the same thing.
A MUM has described the “shock and disbelief” of suffering a heart attack at 40 and then losing her mum two years later from one of Scotland’s biggest killers.
Claire Maguire, who is a solicitor in Glasgow, developed chest pains while celebrating her fiance Kenny’s birthday.
However she mistook her lifethreatening symptoms for simple indigestion, took a remedy and tried to forget about it.
But after two and a half hours of agonising pain, which started radiating down her arm, Kenny persuaded her to call 999. By this time she was also clammy and suffering pain in her jaw.
Doctors confirmed that she had suffered a heart attack at just 40 and she was diagnosed with coronary heart disease.
Claire, 43, admits she was “under a lot of stress” and was a smoker but has now quit and re-evaluated her lifestyle.
Two years after her own neardeath experience on Easter Sunday 2013, she suffered the loss of her mother from a heart attack.
Claire, who lives in Giffnock, said: “I’ll never forget it.
“It was my fiance Kenny’s birthday and we were spending Easter Sunday together. I just thought I had really bad indigestion that wouldn’t go away so I took a remedy but it just kept getting worse and worse.
“The pain went down my left arm but it didn’t cross my mind that this could be a heart attack. I’d had bad indigestion before which, in retro- spect, could have been a heart attack. I was in blissful ignorance.”
“I didn’t want to make a fuss. I suppose I was embarrassed. But by the time he phoned I was clammy and my jaw was sore. When the paramedics arrived, I was actually starting to feel a bit better and I was breathing more calmly.
“The cardiologist said I’d had a heart attack. I was in shock and disbelief. In fact, I asked him if he was sure. I said, ‘Oh my goodness’ and I started to panic. My chest was getting tight and sore and I was sweating.”
After an ECG, it was thought Claire was having another heart attack and she was rushed to the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank for an emergency angioplasty to expand the damaged artery.
Two year later, Claire was to suffer a further blow after her mum Eleanor Maguire suffered a heart attack and died two years later, shortly before Christmas in 2015. She had been suffering from vascular disease.
Claire said: “It upsets me that people don’t seem to know about heart disease and don’t take it seriously. They don’t think it’s going to happen to them.
“I’ve gone through periods of depression but I’m over that now and more determined than ever not to let this heart issue affect my life.”
Claire’s colleagues at the law firm, Inksters Solicitors, are now aiming to raise thousands to fund life-saving research by the British Heart Foundation Scotland with two charity raffles. Prizes for the Big Winter Raffles include two return BA flights from Glasgow to Venice.
Tickets can be purchased at www. inkstersgive.com