She nearly ignored symptoms: Mom suffered for months without help

Staff Writer

Because she couldn’t breath well and her hands and feet were always cold, 50-year-old Betty Crawford decided to make a quick stop at Beverly Hospital to “get something to improve her circulation,” before taking her three teenagers to the Topsfield Fair one October day.

The decision probably saved her life.

After examining Crawford, doctors plunked her down into a wheel chair and whisked her into a trauma room to drain her body of life threatening fluids and lower her sky-high blood pressure.

When doctors told Crawford they were admitting her she said, “No, no, I don’t have time. This is my weekend with the kids.”

Crawford was told she was suffering from congestive heart failure.

Later, after a battery of cardiac tests showed she was also having dangerous heart palpitations, (erratic heart beats and fluttering) she had to have electric shock treatment to return her heart to a normal rate.

“They had to use those paddles to stop my heart, then start it again,” she said.

Crawford said she didn’t think her symptoms were heart-related even though she had been experiencing shortness of breath at home and at work and had spent the last month sleeping upright in a Lazy-Boy recliner because she couldn’t sleep in her bed.

Now, two years after her cardiac rehabilitation at the Beverly Hospital’s Lifestyles Management Institute, medication and changes in her lifestyle including reducing her salt intake, eating more fish and seafood and losing 68 pounds, Crawford said she feels much better.

Her heart, which was enlarged with fluid is back to its normal size.

She takes medication for cholesterol and high blood pressure and her last chest X-ray and ultrasound was clear, she said.

“Now I can sleep, she said, adding that it took four months before she could return to her bed, lie flat and breathe comfortably.

“I used to wake up a lot to go to the bathroom,” she said before the heart incident. “It was all fluid. The heart monitor saw what it was.”

Even though Crawford’s father and uncle had heart problems, she said she never thought she would suffer from the disease, a common misconception by many women who believe heart disorders are a man’s ailment.

She said she has been overweight all her life and was a smoker until 1975. When she couldn’t walk far, she and her kids attributed it to her weight.

“I’m a customer service rep and talk to people all day long,” she said. “Even just to walk back and forth to get files I was out of breath,” she said. “I couldn’t walk from work to the parking lot without stopping and catching my breath. When I finally climbed into my van, I had to stop and catch my breath before starting the car. At night, my feet would be cold and I noticed that I had to sleep sitting up.”

Crawford said she knew something wasn’t right, but believed it to be a blood circulation problem.

She said when she walked into the Beverly Hospital on that fall day two years ago, she thought she could just get some pills ‘to get my blood going.’

Now she follows a regular routine to keep her body healthy.

She said she joined her local YMCA, and bought a treadmill which she uses on snowy days to get enough exercise.

She walks about three times a week, down from the seven days she was walking right after her initial treatments, but plans to do more, she said.

While she has maintained her weight loss, she said she has a long way to go to lose more.

“Spring is coming, I’m really going to work on it,” she said.

As she approaches her 52nd birthday, Crawford said she understands how serious her heart episode was. She has learned much about the disease and said women especially need to pay attention to warning signs.

“If you think something’s wrong, there probably is. I knew I was supposed to be warm,” she said of her usual hot flashes that seemed to be replaced by the relentless cold in her extremities.

“I guess you should just check it out to be sure.”