At 85, I thought I was having a heart attack, then I got this surprising diagnosis

This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org. At first, I blamed Doris. My four-year-old shelter dog walks so fast on the way to the dog park, I thought my striving to keep up triggered my labored breathing. There were other culprits. Recently, when I was walking home with friends from a neighborhood restaurant, I tried to chat and match their pace. But I huffed and puffed. My pals are decades younger than I am was my diagnosis.

But then, like an amateur pole vaulter easing past the bar but landing shakily on the ground, I leapt to my certainty of a pending heart attack. “I want a stress test,” I typed from my computer to my physician’s portal. My fingers were unsteady, mimicking the speed of my heartbeats. “I’m having trouble catching my breath when I walk my dog,” I wrote. Then, to increase the dire needed to help me slip through her crowded calendar, I added: “Both of my parents died young of heart disease. My dad at 47 and mom at 67.” Don’t miss: ‘My body was breaking down.’ This 75-year-old was sick and overweight, and now she’s full of energy and a fitness influencer.Time for an exam It worked. “But before we schedule a stress test,” she wrote back, “come in for an exam.” I felt safe in her office. If a heart attack did plan an invasion, I was in a p …

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