Doctors told her she needed an angiogram as soon as possible, and when the results came through in January 2025, she was told she would need heart bypass surgery. <\/p>\n
She was put on a long waiting list, and thinking it wasn\u2019t that bad got on with her summer plans. <\/p>\n
Several days later, when she was \u201cnot feeling right\u201d, she phoned the cardiac nurse, who called an ambulance. <\/p>\n
Denise McCormack, pictured on her horse Dusty, has always led an active life.<\/p>\n
The doctor revealed she had suffered an NSTEMI, a common, serious heart attack caused by a partial blockage of a coronary artery, leading to reduced blood flow and heart muscle damage. <\/p>\n
She then needed an urgent quadruple bypass and was told surgery on the public waiting list would take six weeks instead of the usual two weeks because the system was so stretched. <\/p>\n
McCormack\u2019s dilemma? Because she opted to go private, she couldn\u2019t wait for surgery in hospital.<\/p>\n
But because she lived in rural Waipu<\/a>, the doctor didn\u2019t want to send her home in case something went wrong. <\/p>\n McCormack said she had to keep herself alive for 10 \u201cterrifying\u201d days at home before the operation. <\/p>\n \u201cIf I went home and something happened to me, I didn\u2019t have much chance. <\/p>\n \u201cI knew if something happened there\u2019s no way you\u2019re going to get an ambulance … I was either going to make it or I wasn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n She survived those 10 days at home by self-medicating anti-coagulants to prevent blood clots and stop existing clots from growing bigger, injecting them straight into her stomach.<\/p>\n McCormack had the quadruple bypass on January 28, 2025. <\/p>\n \u201cEven if you\u2019ve got a slight hint you could have anything cardiac related, there\u2019s no harm in getting checked,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cI went because of my family history and didn\u2019t expect them to find anything. I thought I was wasting people\u2019s time, but I wasn\u2019t. <\/p>\n \u201cI would have followed in the steps of my mum and uncle.\u201d <\/p>\n McCormack said women often experienced different symptoms of a heart attack than men. <\/p>\n While men experience chest pain, and pain down the left arm, radiating into the jaw, women can feel extreme fatigue, nausea, indigestion and dizziness. <\/p>\n At the time of her cardiac arrest, McCormack didn\u2019t have any pain in her arm or chest, or any strange sensations on her left side. <\/p>\n She just knew she didn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n \u201cThe symptoms are different. <\/p>\n \u201cSometimes women will just get on and do things and dismiss what\u2019s going on. <\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t think anything was wrong before; it was all very quick. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m grateful to be alive.\u201d <\/p>\n Every 90 minutes, a family in New Zealand loses a loved one to heart disease. <\/p>\n