going home to continue her day. Instead, she was told she had suffered a heart attack within the previous 24 hours and was sent to Glasgow, the nearest hospital.
“ I didn’ t want to go,” Pam said.“ I asked if I could just wait and see how it went. The answer was no. I asked if some of my family could take me. The answer was no.” Popplewell was told she would be transported by ambulance.
“ For the second time in my life, I had no control,” Popplewell recalled.“ The first was when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020. Another story for another time.”
The Elephant in the Room
Bailey said there are different types of heart disease.“ The elephant in the room,” she said,“ is coronary heart disease.” Bailey said this is the most common type of heart disease where plaque builds up in the walls of the arteries.
“ Those arteries are what supply the blood to our heart and other parts of our body,” she explained.
This is what happened to Popplewell, whose story took a drastic turn in September when she suffered another heart attack that required open heart surgery.
Women Present Differently In the past, women ' s heart disease was largely ignored. Considered a man’ s disease, it was often brushed off as anxiety, due to women having different symptoms.
“ Women do present differently,” Bailey said.“ The path of physiology is different. The presentation is different. Women tend to have less obstructive plaque in those vessels.” She said women tend to have more frequent symptoms and more myocardial ischemia, which is a lack of blood flow to the heart muscle.
Bailey said typical symptoms of a heart attack can include chest pain or a squeezing feeling in the chest. She said pain that radiates into the arm, neck, or jaw is also common.
“ Women can have no symptoms, they can present with typical symptoms, or they can have atypical symptoms.” As a medical provider, Bailey said it’ s essential to have a higher index of suspicion when women come through the ER in order to get the appropriate diagnosis.
Bailey said atypical symptoms in women can include noticing a significant decline in endurance, having unusual fatigue or shortness of breath.“ A lot of women will get this generalized feeling of uneasiness, or an overbearing feeling of fear or anxiousness,” she explained.
Women need to be more tuned in and not so quick to brush these symptoms
Pamela Popplewell, with her daughter Darika Conover, at TJ Samson Community Hospital in Glasgow after her first heart attack in June 2025.
Photo submitted off as stress or anxiety, it is advised.
Popplewell literally waited an entire day. It was not until the symptoms returned in a more aggressive manner the following day that she realized just laying down for a few minutes might not make her feel better.
Bailey said flu-like symptoms, indigestion( like Popplewell experienced), and heart palpitations are also atypical symptoms that should not be ignored. She stressed that risk factors for coronary heart disease should also be taken into consideration. These include high blood pressure, which Bailey says is the main risk factor.
Bailey said women experiencing gestational hypertension( elevated blood pressure while pregnant) are two times as likely to develop heart disease later in life compared to those who do not.
High cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, an unhealthy diet, and being sedentary are all risk factors of coronary heart disease, as are stress and depression, Bailey said. When these
12 • SEKY- Southeast Kentucky Life february 2026