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What should women know if they're going to have heart surgery? Find out by watching this video clip of patient advocate Mellanie True Hills.
Mellanie True Hills:
Well, for women heart surgery is a little bit different from men. One of the things that doctors don’t think to tell us is that you may need a different bra. If you’re having open heart surgery, you are going to need a different bra size, a different band size. You’re going to go up half an inch to an inch possibly, because everything is not going to fit back in there like it did before.
If you’re having atrial fibrillation surgery like I did, mine was minimally invasive so I had incisions under my arms and in other places around my chest. So because of that, I didn’t need the usual bra elastic rubbing those incisions. So I recommend that every woman that’s having surgery that’s going to be in that area, go out and buy a soft bra and even have a discussion with the doctor ahead of time as to where the incisions will be.
Maybe even have the doctor mark with a pen, draw in on you where those incisions are going to be so you can go straight out to the store, try on a bra, make sure it’s not going to rub you in that area and then you’re all set, but having a soft bra can make a world of difference after heart surgery.
Bio:
Heart Survivor, Author, and Speaker Mellanie is a heart survivor and the author of A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life: The HEART Program for Health & Longevity. After having a brush with death in emergency heart surgery, Mellanie now uses her second chance to coach individuals in creating healthy lifestyles and organizations in creating healthy, productive workplaces.
Heart disease is the #1 killer, and stroke is #3. In the US each day, we lose nearly 3,000 men and women to heart disease and stroke. Forty per cent of us will get, and die from, heart disease or stroke. But it is preventable, if you know what to do.
Women have different heart symptoms than men, and they're typically very subtle, so for women, the first symptom is frequently a heart attack. Knowing those symptoms can save your life.
Mellanie's mission is to spread awareness of how to save your own life. She provides a message of hope and encouragement, sharing how to take control, decrease stress, and protect against heart disease. Audiences consistently say, You changed my life.
To further this mission, Mellanie is the founder and CEO of the American Foundation for Women's Health.
Mellanie also works with organizations that want healthy, productive workplaces to decrease stress and keep employees healthy, including how to leverage technology and culture in doing so.
View Mellanie True Hills' Videos:
https://www.empowher.com/heart
Visit Mellanie True Hills on her Web sites:
www.mellaniehills.com
www.stopafib.org