Deborah Bateman’s Kind Heart Likely Saved Her Own Life
By Jamie Killin
Turns out a kind heart can save you.
Most of us hope we won’t ever find ourselves affected by the perils of the causes we support — but in some cases, the knowledge provided by these associations can save our lives.
That was the case for Bateman, a longtime supporter and former board member of the American Heart Association.
It was when she was chairing the association’s Go Red for Women event that she was diagnosed with hypertension.
“When I was diagnosed with high blood pressure it wasn’t necessarily a surprise,” she said. “The doctor said at the time ‘It’s not anything you’re doing or eating or not doing, you’ve got a propensity because of your genetics.’”
Then, earlier this year, when her blood pressure reached dangerous levels, she was able to recognize the subtle symptoms and seek the help she needed.
It was a night in early April when Bateman got sick, suffering from nausea, vomiting and leg cramps. The next morning, when she woke up with pain in her legs and a heavy chest, she recognized the symptoms and realized that something might be wrong.
She scheduled an appointment to visit the doctor, and to her surprise, not long after she arrived she was told she needed to be transported to the hospital in an ambulance as soon as possible.
“All of this, I mean hospitalization, freaking the doctor out, then calling the ambulance and I’m going to sit here and tell you, I never felt bad,” she said. “I’d gone into the doctor just to check out the symptoms and the good news is I knew what the symptoms were, the bad news is I was a walking time bomb.”
Bateman credits her work with the American Heart Association for saving her life by giving her the knowledge she needed to recognize the symptoms of her high blood pressure.
“I was trying to do good things for the community and for others, and in retrospect what I did and what I was doing was educating myself and doing myself a favor.”
She shared that the symptoms of high blood pressure and heart disease are difficult to recognize — it’s the reason many call it the “silent killer.”
“’People will say, ‘Do you know when your blood pressure is high?’ and you do not know,” Bateman said. “I have no clue. There is no way of knowing, so if there’s a lesson that I’ve learned it’s that you’ve got to know what your numbers are and you need to be aware.”
Further complicating the matter, is that the symptoms of heart disease are strikingly different in men and women, leaving many women unsure of what to look for.
“The really good thing that the American Heart Association does, and the thing I really love about Go Red for Women is it makes especially women more aware of what kinds of symptoms women have with heart disease because none of those things sound like a heart attack,” she said. “I haven’t had a heart attack, but I could have at any time.”
It’s the knowledge she gained advocating for the association that’s likely prevented Bateman from suffering a heart attack, and she hopes their programs will continue to spread the lifesaving information to more women.
“It’s created more of an awareness in me, and probably quite honestly saved my life,” she said.
