By Barry Wise Smith
On October 10, 2023, less than a month after her 54th birthday, Audrey Atkins was enjoying her morning coffee with her husband Ricky while visiting her brother Father John McDonald at his home in Anniston. “I started having heartburn-like pain, and I was thinking ‘what kind of cheap coffee did my brother buy that gave me heartburn that fast,’” Atkins says. But when the pain started radiating up Atkin’s left arm, she knew something more than heartburn was happening. “I had watched enough television shows to know that was a sign of something bad,” she says.
Soon Atkins started feeling nauseous and began vomiting, and Ricky called 911. “Things went from good to bad very fast,” Atkins remembers. The ambulance took Atkins to Regional Medical Center in Anniston, where after a bevy of tests, it was determined that Atkins had a heart attack.
Atkins knew that the males in her family had a history of cardiovascular disease. Her father had triple bypass surgery when he was 56, and her father’s twin brother and his son (Atkin’s uncle and first cousin) both died of massive heart attacks in their mid-40s. “I just never expected it would happen to me,” she says.
Atkins remained in the hospital for two days undergoing numerous test that revealed she didn’t have blocked arteries or any other typical signs of cardiovascular disease. Upon her release, Atkins was treated by cardiologist Dr. Spencer Gaskin and underwent cardia rehab at UAB. “Luckily, I was reasonably healthy, and Ricky reacted quickly, so the damage to my heart wasn’t that bad,” Atkins says. But, unfortunately no one could ever give Atkins a definitive cause of her heart attack. “It was scary at first to not know, but over time, that has faded,” she says.
Atkins health level at the time of her heart attack is likely one of the main reasons she didn’t suffer more catastrophic damage. On January 1, 2021, amid the Covid 19 pandemic, Atkins, inspired by her friend Javacia Harris Bowser, began to walk daily. “I started, and it was one month, then two months, then six months, then it was two years,” Atkins says. By the day she had her heart attack, Atkins had walked for 1,011 straight days. “My doctor said that all the walking made my heart stronger than it would have been if I hadn’t been walking,” Atkins says.
While 2024 was a year of healing and recovery for Atkins, she has gone back to her daily walks and adheres to a healthy diet—without being too strict—and tries to eliminate stressors in her life whenever possible. “I’ve developed better coping mechanisms and do breathing exercises,” Atkins says. “I try not to let little things blow up into big things, and I do things that I enjoy.”
She also shares her story through her writing so that she can help others. “I don’t take my life for granted, and if by telling my story, I can help someone else, then that’s what I want to do,” she says. “Women tend to put everyone else in front of themselves, but you can’t care for your family or anyone else if you aren’t here. You have to take things seriously. Whether it’s a pain you’ve been ignoring or that lump you’ve delayed having checked, don’t’ wait, go take care of it.”
During her rehabilitation, her doctors found an undiagnosed heart defect called Myocardial Bridging, which is not that uncommon. “The doctors don’t think that had anything to do with my heart attack,” she says.
In the end, the most valuable lesson Atkins learned was this, “Pay attention to your body! You know better than anyone if something doesn’t feel right. You only have one heart, and you have to take care of it!”
Things I Learned from Audrey Atkins:
- Listen to your body!
- Ask questions and advocate for yourself—the doctors are working for you not the other way around.
- Record or write down the answers to your questions so you can go over them later.
- Find a doctor you trust who gives you sound advice—even if that means seeing a couple of different doctors until you find the right one.
- Be aware of the symptoms of a heart attack—nausea, vomiting, an indigestion/heartburn sensation. Women’s symptoms can be much different from men’s.
