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a pressure that felt memorable, a pressure that I recognized from just 16-and-a-half weeks earlier.” Pam said she tried to shake it off, thinking she would be okay. When her symptoms worsened, she thought she had better go to the ER. Thinking she would be given some nitroglycerin tablets, she was eager to go home and get her work done.
What Popplewell thought would happen that day turned into another ambulance ride to Glasgow. She was in the middle of experiencing an active heart attack. Back to the cath lab she went. Only this time, a stent would not solve her problems. The blockage would require open heart surgery.
“ Wait. What?! No, no, no. This is not how this is supposed to work,” Popplewell thought. She had way too much work to do, too many projects that needed to be finished. She couldn’ t possibly be off for any kind of surgery.
As much as she wished to be“ fixed” at the Glasgow hospital, she found herself in Nashville, where the day before her surgery, it would be discovered that she had 90 percent blockage to her carotid artery in her neck.“ I was diagnosed with subclavian artery stenosis," she said. " I am just so grateful that it was found before a stroke occurred.” A third stent was placed in her neck.
" I had a whole army of
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family who had traveled to be with me and I was so grateful for each one of them,” said Popplewell of the harrowing experience.
The bypass surgery on October 2, which was expected to take three to four hours, actually took 15.
“ I had undergone a quadruple bypass and survived. I am now an official member of the‘ Zipper Club’ and carry more stent cards in my wallet than I do debit and bank cards,” said Popplewell.
Pamela Popplewell
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From Registered Nurse to Nurse Practitioner
Bailey worked at Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital as a bedside nurse in the ICU for nearly nine years. That experience with the cardiac patients paved the way to her current role as a family nurse practitioner working with cardiology patients before they require hospitalization. Now, Bailey is driven to provide as much education as possible to patients to try to help them avoid what
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Popplewell experienced.
“ Women recognize that something’ s not right but it gets pushed off on the back burner because of other responsibilities,” she said. She stressed the importance of taking care of ourselves and talking with health care providers about symptoms.“ We recognize abnormalities in our body more than what we want to admit.
“ Not every patient requires cardiovascular diagnostics but if the symptoms are there, if the risk factors are there, you need a referral from primary care to cardiology,” she added.
Bailey said she realizes there can be reservations about the unknowns associated with a cardiology referral. To put minds at ease for both men and women, she feels it is important to explain what that referral entails.
“ An initial new patient appointment with me involves sitting down and getting a good social history, medical history, family history … I am going to get down in all of your business," she said.
Bailey also said to also be prepared to talk about your cardiovascular symptoms or concerns. Early diagnostics are non-invasive. Bailey believes in involving her patients in their plan of care.“ I want the patient to be comfortable and I want them to be a part of developing that plan of care.”
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