Kateřina Kaie Baierová

„I was left alone in a hospital hallway with terrible chest pain refractory to any medication. Nobody knew what was going on. So they sent me home.“

Do you know that feeling when you are totally out of control of some situation? That happened to me in July 2020, I was 34, healthy, fit, very active. Until I was not.

My myocardial bridge was found after a lengthy process of unnecessary examinations. On ER I was told I was too young and too healthy to have a heart attack, my troponine level is just below the limit values, so cardiologists declined to even see me. They told me it was stress. A panic attack. Anxiety. Reflux. Borelia. Asthma. Post-breakup phase. I was told I observe myself too much.

They said it was everything but a bad heart. And I believed them. After three major episodes of a demonstration heart attack, I trusted my doctors that it was all in my head.

Fortunately, my dear friend, an emergency room doctor who spent a lot of personal time with me and knows me very well, didn’t let me give up so easily. And I got to see one of the greatest heart specialists in Czech Republic and he didn’t leave me alone for hours in the hallway, he didn’t sent me home this time.

Instead, he kept looking and did the proper tests. And he found what was happening with me. It’s just that not everyone has a friend in the ER with contacts. So I promised myself I don’t let another woman to go through this like me. I don’t want a woman with a heart attack to be left alone in the hallway for hours in pain that no medication is working. I don’t want a woman with a heart attack to be sent home with a prescription for anti-anxiety medication or reflux pills.

That’s why I’m trying to spread awareness about the specific diagnosis of MINOCA heart attack. And I’m trying to find those women who, like me back then, are now sitting in a hospital corridor in pain, alone, without a proper diagnosis and noone cares that this is a really serious situation.

I care. And I want to let them know that they are not alone.

With love and loving heart, Kaie

Milada Skrbková (later Žemlová, 30 May 1897 – 2 October 1935) was a Czech tennis player.^[2] At the 1920 Olympics she won a bronze medal in the mixed doubles, playing with her future husband Ladislav Žemla.^[1] She was the first woman to represent Czechoslovakia at the Olympics. She was my grand-grandmother. She was healthy, fit and very active (pro) until the day she suddenly fell down on the ground dead because of heart anomaly. She was 38. I dedicate my page to her memory. Because she was one of us too. She was young, healthy, very active – until she was not.