Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy often begins with an intense emotional event but I call my experience ‘a perfect storm’.

I was a single mum, working full time from home, managing an extreme health condition, and doing a bachelor degree in social work at night.

My ‘trigger’ for my event was my boss asking me how I was, in a remote work meeting. Im that instant I felt a pain in my chest first and then it spread into my left armpit. I was alone, so I left my apartment and walked downstairs where I was able to get to my doctors rooms next door.

Once in the treatment room at my doctors surgery I was placed on an ECG and the nurse called 000. In hindsight I probably should have called 000 myself. The ambulance arrived, and the paramedics assured me I was stable.  They helped me breathe and stay calm on the way to the hospital.

In hospital I was taken to RESUS and had a bedside ECHO and was swiftly taken to have an angiogram. That’s when the doctors advised what had happened and I had suffered a Takotsubo event. The pain was being managed and I was admitted for one week. I have stayed on a beta- blocker to manage my heart rate now and stop another event happening.

Rejoining the world after that was at times difficult. I was a little more timid than usual and worried about my heart rate being too high. Exercise helped me immensely, it helped me trust my heart and my body again. Meditation has also become an important part of my daily routine. Relaxing and switching off is just as important as physical activity.

It’s been three and a half years since that day and I haven’t had another event, nor do I think I will have one. Today it’s just a memory, I don’t suffer any side-effects but I do live a much more balanced life.