Kirsty Liddell went into cardiac arrest due to her genetically high cholesterol levels and warns others to look out for heart disease. 66725
By Emma Sun
WHEN Beaconsfield’s Kirsty Liddell started to experience shortness of breath a couple of months ago, the last thing she expected it to lead to was cardiac arrest.
The 36-year-old was slender, she wasn’t unfit and she has always had a good diet.
“Earlier in the year, I experienced a bit of shortness of breath when I was exercising but I just put that to generally being unfit at the time,” Ms Liddell said.
“Those symptoms seemed to go away. There wasn’t anything that was very alarming to me to make me think I would have a cardiac arrest.”
She has genetically high cholesterol levels, which she took medication for, though she wasn’t taking them consistently since having her three children.
“The cholesterol formed fatty deposits in my arteries. That’s what has caused three of my arteries to be blocked and in affect the cardiac arrest,” she said.
It wasn’t until after she collapsed in the family home on 30 April that she and her family realised how serious the problem was.
“They put me in an induced coma as soon as I arrived on the Saturday afternoon and I had my operation five days later because I wasn’t coming out of my coma,” Ms Liddell said.
“They tried a few times to get me out because they don’t like to perform surgery when you’re in a coma, but they ended up operating on me while I was in my coma.”
The eight hour procedure saw Ms Liddell undergo five heart bypasses and it was a miracle she came out with no brain damage.
“Triple-zero was fantastic, they were just integral to me surviving without having any brain damage, their response time was something like six minutes,” she said.
“It’s largely a credit to my husband as well – he handled the situation and didn’t become too distressed when I went down.
“Triple-zero talked him through the compressions and kept him calm.”
Ms Liddell is now almost back to perfect health and has made slight changes to her lifestyle to prevent another attack from happening.
“I’m probably back to 90 to 95 per cent and I feel really good, I get a little bit tired but it’s nothing to complain about,” she said.
“It’s just going to be managing cardio fitness levels, upping that a bit. I’ll be more conscious about what I put into my mouth, what I’m eating now and obviously medication will be a crucial part of my life.
“I’m now aggressively on those tablets as I wasn’t before because I was having kids. I was probably a bit naïve and wasn’t as strict with taking the medication as constantly.
“I really didn’t think that at the age of 36 that I would have a cardiac arrest due to high cholesterol build-up and things like that.”
According to the Heart Foundation’s National Health Survey in 2007-08, 7.5 per cent of people in south-eastern outer Melbourne had high cholesterol levels.
Cardiovascular disease prevalence, which includes cardiac arrest, affected 15 per cent people.
Heart disease is the number one killer in women. According to the Heart Foundation, it kills 215 Australian women a week and almost 31 women a day.
“It’s a statistic that not many people know about. I didn’t know about it either, not at all,” Ms Liddell said.
Ms Liddell encourages everyone to get checked and get their blood tested for high cholesterol levels, as it is often silent.
“I think people need to be aware of what their cholesterol levels are – it doesn’t take much for a blood test,” she said.
“You want to be around to see your kids grow so the best thing to do is put yourself forward, women especially.
“If you’ve got small children you often forget about yourself and it’s really important.
“This was clearly so unexpected, there was no way in my wildest dreams that I thought this would happen to me.
“I thought I would be in trouble when I was 60 maybe, or 50s when I’m not on medication so it was pushed to the backburner, it was something I would deal with later.
“I’m only 36 and I was so fortunate to have my husband home at the time.
“If he wasn’t home then I certainly wouldn’t be here telling my story.”
