{Go Red For Womem} Celebrating 10 Years of Saving Lives

Posted on January 29, 2014 by NinjaInTheCity

I have always been involved with the American Heart Association. As a child I participated in jump rope for heart, learned CPR with my girl scout troop, and in college I volunteered with the Twin Ports Go Red Chapter. My family has been supporting the American Heart Association since the day a little girl named Emma came into our lives. Emma taught us that life is cruel and even thou we are small we must play the hand fate dealt us.

Emma was dealt a shitty hand right from the start. You see she came into this world with a broken heart. Emma was the fist infant in Minnesota to receive a heart transplant. With that transplant we were filled with hope for a brighter day. Emma was one hell of a fighter, she gave life her all until the last breath left her body on December 29th, 1995. Emma was 3 yeas old when she left this world. Her father was robbed of the chance to walk her down the isle, and her sisters were cheated out of a best friend. From that moment I was committed to the mission of saving lives.

Fast forward a few years I was away at college in the north woods of Wisconsin far away from my family. On February 8th 2002 I called home to speak to my father. Instead of a conversation, I found out that my father was fighting for his life. I hung up the phone, my knees hit the floor and I prayed to God to take me instead. My father gave it his all, he’s an angle with one wing in the fire and someone up there was looking out for him that day. The mayo clinic fixed his heart and he was able to see his daughter graduate from college, get married, and watched her find herself. Mostly he got to stand by his daughter’s side as she recovered from a stroke.

Emma and my father were to very good reasons to volunteer with the American Heart Association. Little did I know that at 26 I would become the very survivor I was advocating for. On October 22, 2009 my life changed forever. Five days before my 27th birthday I became a pulmonary embolism with infarction and stroke survivor. I have no side effects or disabilities from my stroke. I am one of the lucky ones. I received the life saving clot busters in the nick of time and excellent care. One thing is for certain I will never look at birth control the same way again.

I went on birth control to regulate my hormones in hopes that I would become pregnant. The doctor recommended the Nuva Ring and said I should use it for a year and then try to conceive. Sadly I was on it for less than a year. Instead of a child, I had the rug ripped out from under me. The Nuva Ring took the very thing I wanted out of the equation. I want more than anything to look into a child’s eyes and know that I brought them into this world. The odds are stacked against me and the risks are far to big. So I settled on the notion that I would never be a Mom.

I know the odds, yet I am not able to quiet the desire. I love being an Aunt, heck being an aunt has made my thirst for motherhood grow. I did a lot of soul searching and faced the sun. Then one day it hit me and I knew there was still an option. The Nuva Ring may have taken my ability to carry a child away, but it will (mark my word) never take away my option to adopt a child. An that is exactly why I am going Red this year.

Left: 2009 / Right 2013 Looking back and celebrating 4 years of Survival

I am going RED for all of the survivors who are now mothers and for all of our sisters who never got the chance to be called MOM. Because of donors like you women like me are getting the chance to be Moms. We are getting the chance to go to college, to fall in love, to get married, and to have families of our own. 10 years ago our futures looked bleak and now, now they are so bright it will set your heart on fire. Every day we are saving 330 women, every day 330 women are getting the chance to live. Young survivors are thriving, the old are spreading their wisdom, and together we are making a stand. A stand against the number one killer of women.

My dream is to one day put away my red dress and to live in a world free of stroke and heart disease. Mostly I want to look into my child’s eyes and love them with every inch of my surviving heart.

“What Will You Gain When You Throw OUT The SCALE?”

Posted on January 5, 2014 by NinjaInTheCity

Photo by Stephanie Ryan Photography

I always dread the end of the Christmas season and find myself counting down the days to wait for it, wait for it….. WEIGHTLOSS SEASON! Every January my TV is filled with commercials spouting “What will you gain when you lose” or meet the new you. There are commercials for every gosh darn weight loss pill, program, and so on. My favorite tagline from an ad is for Lipozine “Why does it work? It cost $300.00. That’s why it works!” Really a $300.00 bottle of pills is going to help me lose weight? I don’t think so. My biggest beef is with Kellogg’s Special K cereal. Their ads always start out empowering with statements such as “You are more than a number.” Then they quickly go down hill.

As a society we have become so focused on the little box that sits on our bathroom floors. We let it guide our self-worth and our lifestyles. I can tell you that I too once lived a life powered by my bathroom scale and counted every God damn calorie that I shoved into my mouth. I ate rice cakes, 100 calorie packs, and many unappetizing low-calorie microwave meals. My life had become “Count, eat, sleep, gym, morning weigh in —– repeat 24/7 365. Then one day I ate a cupcake, I didn’t dare figure out the calorie count, and for once I was ok with it.

As I was learning to love my body, my bathroom scale began to gather dust. I stood one night and looked at myself in the mirror. As in really looked at myself, I saw my body from a grown up perspective. I was reminded that I get my facial features from my Aunt Cherie Leigh, I have her freckles, large forehead, and high cheek bones. I noticed that my collar-bone sticks out and that my boobs are still holding their own. My back fat, (yea, I’ve got it too!) curves, and dimpled backside no longer bothered me. Instead of flaws I saw strength.

For the first time in a long time, I smiled into the mirror. I am not a size 8 or even a 10, yet I am happy in my size 12/14 jeans. I no longer strive to be like the girls in the magazines. I want to be the best possible me. I need to take care of the body that God gave me. The flaws disappeared, instead I focused on the fact that my body survived a pulmonary embolism and carried a child for a short while. The scar on my lower abdomen is a reminder of my bladder reconstruction surgery and to have hope for a better day. The scars on my knee remind me to keep on walking until the road before me ends. My curly hair, I finally love it and no longer wish for straight hair.

My big flat feet proved to be the perfect canvas for a tattoo. Tattoos, I’ve got two! One on my foot of four bear paws to remind me that my son Alucious is always with me. I have a book-worm studying a law-book on my lower right back (Ha! You thought it was a tramp stamp!) it reminds me to never stop fighting for justice.

You see I no longer want to spend my life looking at a scale. Instead I want to celebrate all of the above things and live a life full of worth. A life filled with white frosted cupcakes, walks with my dog, and backyard BBQs. I don’t need to be a size 2 to be beautiful. At a size 12/14 I am the healthiest I have ever been in my life. I no longer need those 100 calorie packs, rice cakes, and crappy low-calorie microwaved meals to eat “healthy”. I learned how to eat healthy, as in real fresh from the farm foods. I cook more and actually get excited about eating. I have more will power than ever before, I can pass up the bakery, cookie, and snack isle in the grocery store. I am not missing out on the treats, instead I buy just one cookie or cupcake to satisfy my craving. That’s all I need.

I do not need a low number to tell me that I am empowering, joyful, healthy, beautiful, or sexy. I will never let the number on my bathroom scale define myself worth again. I just wish Special K cereal would changer their ads and make women feel empowered in their current state and not ask them “What will you gain when you lose?” Because really the true question is “What will you gain when you throw out the bathroom scale?”

{Hearts on 22} Love With All of Your Heart

Posted on December 24, 2013 by NinjaInTheCity

Christmas is when I miss Charlie the most. Mostly because he got cheated. Cheated out of meeting Sophia. He was anticipating her arrival and received status updates on the progress of her birth. A trial kept him in New York and he couldn’t wait to hang up his traveling suit and snuggle his niece in his arms. Charlie never got to see her smile, hear her laughter or feel her tiny hand in his. Sophia never got to meet the man who dreamed of taking her to Paris and who would have spoiled her beyond her wildest imagination. Charlie died loving the tiny girl he never got to meet.

As I sit back and reflect I can’t help but to think about all of the people who have never laid eyes on their niece or nephew. Sure deadly drunk driving accidents stick in our minds. After all one drunk driver took Charlie an 4 other people out on a wintry Valentine’s Day. That was one moment in time, yet in that moment hundreds of women lost their lives to heart disease and stroke. Hundreds more died that day from a Pulmonary Embolisms or other hormonal contraceptive related side effect. Those lives never make the news, they just fade quietly into the timelines of history.

If it were not for my care team I would have joined the fading time line. I would have been another casualty not a news worthy story. There isn’t a day that goes by where I do not thank God for keeping me on this earth. For answering my silent prayer and giving me the strength to fight. For giving me the strength to stand up and shout my story from the roof tops. With each word spoken I began to heal my broken heart, I penned my name on a legal services agreement and became a plaintiff in the Multidistrict Litigation against Merck. I put myself out there in hopes that I could save one woman from enduring my hell. I love with all of my heart and in a sheer moment of utter disaster my passion was born.

My purpose is clear “educate those around me about the dangers of hormonal contraceptives, blood clots, stroke and pulmonary embolism warning signs.” I will not rest until the Nuva Ring is pulled from he market and until doctors properly inform their patients of the risk associated with the use of hormonal contraceptives. Charlie was the one who pushed me to share my story with the world. He took up my mission and would stand in the wings watching me with tears in his eyes as I brought tears to the audience. I am alive today because I listed to my heart.

When Charlie died my heart was broken and it healed each time I held our niece in my arms. Each time I heard her laughter, held her tiny hand in mine, and listen to her whisper Auntie” for the first time. To think the Nuva Ring almost robbed me of those moments. My birth control almost cheated me out of being an aunt. The Nuva Ring almost claimed my life and it changed me in more ways than I could ever explain. However it will never ever stop me from loving Sophia with all of my surviving heart. Sophia will grow up with the notion that she is one lucky little girl. Because she could be holding a picture of the woman she calls Auntie. Instead she gets to hold her aunties hand and play. She is lucky because God allowed her Aunt to be the 1 out of 5 who got to walk away from a massive pulmonary embolism on October 22, 2009.

As I watch Sophia unwrap her gifts I will be thinking about all of my sisters who lost the battle. About all of those who would gladly take my seat at the table and those who are fighting with all of their hearts. Families will gather and thousands of children will hear stories about the women they never got to meet. Heart disease, strokes, and pulmonary embolisms are taking to many aunties out of the equation. To many children are walking in memory of the woman they never got to call “Auntie” and never got to love with all of their hearts.

{Hearts on 22} Celebrating My 4th Borrowed Year

Posted on October 22, 2013 by NinjaInTheCity

{Photo by Stephanie Ryan Photography}

There are moments were I feel like the little girl from Schindler’s list. You know the little girl in the one scene of the movie where everything is in black and white except for her red coat. Over the past four years I have heard more stories of pulmonary embolism loss than survival. I realize that only 1 out of 5 patients will survive a pulmonary embolism, yet it still moves me. Long ago I stopped asking God why he spared me and called another home in my place. At some point you stop wondering and start living. Living my life is the only way I know how to honor the four people who died so I could be the one who walked away. I vowed to make every year, month, week, day, hour, minute, and second of my life count, as I know I am living on borrowed time.

I have crisscrossed this country, speaking in church basements, town halls, elementary school classrooms, and college campuses educating women on the side effects of birth control. Educating women on heart health, blood clots, and mostly empowering them to be their own health care advocate. They listen wide-eyed as I tell my tale and go over the symptoms/warning signs. Only to find tears in their eyes as they realize that I almost died five days before my 27th birthday.

That out of anything I say is what sticks with people, the fact that I almost died five days before my 27th birthday. I can still see my Mam’s face as she walked into my room, her fear was so thick you could have cut it with a knife, her eyes filled with tears as she whispered “It should be my laying in that bed, you are to damn young for this.” She took my hand, rubbed my head, and promised me that we were going to beat this. She allowed me to cry for one minute and then I had to put my big girl pants on and fight. I had IVs coming from all directions, wires and leads tapped to every limb, in that moment my future looked bleak, yet I knew that this would pass, and that I would bounce back.

I’ve wasted enough precious time thinking about what I can’t have or do. Its taken a while but I have come t terms with the notion that I will never carry a child of my own, that I will not run a marathon, or climb a mountain. Instead I now focus on what I can do, I can adopt a child, walk a 5K really fast with my sister, and I will settle for the top of a hill any day. Most of all I can use my story to help educate my girlfriends and strangers about the deadly side effects of birth control. I can share my story with my Legislators, Congressmen, and Representatives, to strengthen the fact that we need more research on Heart Disease and Stroke in women.

My pulmonary embolism was the ER staffs main concern and my slight stroke was just a bonus. They both wreaked havoc on my body, yet I am still standing. When I look in the mirror I no longer see flaws, instead I see a body that’s been through hell and back. I see a body that survived a pulmonary embolism with infarction and a stroke, I have no doubt that it will carry me through a lot more. I have come to terms with the fact that I will never have my pre-PE/Stroke body back. I am just happy to be standing.

I am haunted by a comment my Mama made, she said “if my daughter didn’t get to the hospital when she did, I would have been picking out her urn instead of her 27th Halloween themed birthday cake.” That comment humbles me and reminds me how close I cam to death that day. My heart goes out to the families who have had to bury a loved one who died unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism. That’s the thing, they are silent, and one never knows that they have a blood clot in their lungs until its to late. Most don’t even know why their child suddenly dropped dead, that is until the autopsy results confirm that they died of a blood clot in their lungs. I think about the women who never got to hold their niece, about the fathers who never got to walk their daughters down the isle, and about the women who were called home all to soon.

I live each day of my life for all of the women who died and for all of my survivor sisters still fighting the good fight. I will stand with my survivor sisters as we continue our wrongful injury/product liability suit against the makers of the Nuva Ring. One day justice will prevail, the souls of the lost will rest, and the broken will heal.

THANK YOU: A day doesn’t go by where I do not think about my care team at Woodwinds Health campus. Because of the ER staffs quick thinking and action I am alive today. I am alive because the doctor stopped what he was doing to ask me “by chance do you use birth control?” Extra test were ordered, a CT scan was given, and with in 30 minutes the clot was found. It was found because of that one little question and I am forever in debt to him. My stroke was stopped in its tracks because of the thrombolytics I received and for that I am forever grateful. I wouldn’t be alive today if it were not for the Doctors and nurses of Woodwinds, for they put this broken girl back together again and sent her back out into the world.

Because No Woman Deserves to Fight ALONE!

To Learn more about Pulmonary embolism and blood clots please visit the following:
Resources from the Mayo Clinic:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pulmonary-embolism/DS00429
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/blood-clots/MY00109
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/deep-vein-thrombosis/DS01005
The National Blood Clot Alliance – Stop The Clot: http://www.stoptheclot.org/

To Learn more about Stroke and Heart Disease please visit the following:
Resources from the Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stroke/DS00150
The American Heart Association: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/
The American Stroke Association: http://www.strokeassociation.org/STROKEORG/
Power To End Stroke: http://powertoendstroke.org/
Go Red for Women: https://www.goredforwomen.org/
Please Join me in making a difference by joining “You’re The Cure”: http://yourethecure.org/aha/advocacy/default.aspx

{MNSure} To Be An Insurable Human Again

Posted on October 6, 2013 by NinjaInTheCity

I can read a benefits packet and analyze a prescription drug formulary like no buddy’s business. For three years I worked for the nations largest Pharmacy Benefit management company and was taught the ins and outs of the insurance world. I received numerous calls from people trying to get medications covered for pre-existing conditions. The only thing I could do was offer up prior authorization or connect them to a pharmacist to look for a covered option.

At 27 I was a freshly divorced pulmonary embolism/stroke survivor, I quit my job, and found myself trying to get insurance in a world that didn’t want to cover a risk. I was no longer seen as AmandaJean, instead I was seen as a pre-existing condition, a drain on an insurance plan. I was young and vibrant, yet my PE plagued me. I searched for an affordable plan, the cheapest one I found was $700 a month for sub par coverage. I couldn’t find fulltime employment, instead I became a contractor and that offers no benefits what so ever. From October 2010 to June 2012 I went without health insurance.

Going without health insurance was like jumping into shark infested waters without a cage. I quickly learned how much medications really cost and had to decide between picking up my medications or paying my student loans. Needless to say my medications trumped my student loan payment and soon the collection calls started. Medical bills started piling up and before I knew it I was $10,000.00 in the hole. CT scans and echocardiograms are not cheap, neither are trips to the ER or urgent care. Since I didn’t have insurance I would try any over the counter remedy before giving in and going to the doctor. The Doctors I saw knew I was a self pay and they did their best to hook me up with samples and alternative care.

In the fall of 2011, I worked myself almost to death and managed to get a staph infection in my knee. I begged and pleaded with the doctor to let me go home, I told him “I can’t afford this, just let me go.” I got to go home four days later and waited for the bills to come. I cried when I saw the total and cashed in my 401K to pay most of the bill off. Only to find myself racking up new and bigger hospital bills. By the time Christmas rolled around I was desperately searching for a job that would offer me good health insurance. I went back to what I knew and took a job at a collections firm. I know, collections is not my cup of tea, however their insurance plan was.

I cried the day my insurance card came in the mail. I finally didn’t have to worry about paying full price for medications or services. I had insurance and I was happy. My job with the collections firm was short-lived, I found myself without a job in January 2013 and I knew one thing: “I was not going to go without insurance again.” I set out and search for an individual plan. The prices had come down quiet a bit since my last search and I knew I could not be denied this time around, thank you Affordable Health Care Act. I decided on an individual plan with HealthPartners, I filled out the online application and waited to receive my certificate of coverage in the mail.

At first I though HealthPartners was playing a joke on me and that the stated premium amount was wrong. I called and spoke to a representative, she double checked, and said AmandaJean that’s right your premium is $94.63 per month. After a long pause, she realized that I was crying. I explained to her that having affordable insurance meant I could hold out for the job I wanted and not rush into something that would give me insurance. By the end of our conversation she was crying right along with me, HealthPartners gave me peace of mind and my life back.

MNSure is an incredible idea and now thousands of Minnesotans will be able to apply for insurance without having to worry about pre-existing conditions and cost. On Tuesday night I logged onto the site and was very impressed by the easy to navigate layout and the types of plans offered. The online form is simple to fill out and asks you questions about income, family size, health habits and so on. Once you sign up for an account you are able to see what your real estimated premium would be and review the options best suited to you.

While MNSure is not the perfect answer, it is a good start and it provides easy access to health insurance for many Minnesotans. Best part is if you are like me and have a pre-existing condition you can no longer be denied nor can you be forced to pay a higher premium than your healthy counterparts. I learned the hard way: going without insurance is a bad idea one cannot afford to go without health insurance. Insurance is now an affordable option and there are many resources out there to help you in your insurance decision.

Here are a few resources to get you started:

http://www.mnsure.org
http://www.ehealthinsurance.com ——-> (This is what I used to find my affordable HealthPartners insurance plan)
http://www.healthpartners.com
http://www.mn.gov/dhs ———> (Minnesota Department of Human Services)

{Hearts on 22} Heart On The Hill, Washington D.C.

Posted on April 26, 2013 by NinjaInTheCity

Washington, D.C., April 9, 2013 – More than 300 American Heart Association volunteers came to Washington, D.C. today to urge Congress to restore federal funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and to support a Million Hearts campaign to attack the growing problem of high blood pressure – public health enemy No. 2 behind tobacco.

Heart disease and stroke survivors, researchers, and healthcare professionals from around the country met with their congressional representatives and asked them to allocate $32 billion for the NIH for 2014, to restore funding cut by the sequester and get NIH back on track.

The association volunteers also joined forces with representatives from more than 200 other non-profit organizations in a “Rally for Medical Research” on April 8, where they called on Congress to make research funding a national priority.

The March 1 sequester slashed nearly $1.5 billion, or 5 percent, of the NIH budget. A cut of this magnitude will reduce the number of planned research grants by about 2,300, cost more than 20,000 jobs nationwide and shrink new economic activity by nearly $3 billion. A typical NIH grant supports about seven full-time or part-time jobs, most of them high-tech. Every dollar that the NIH distributes through grants returns more than $2 in goods and services annually to a local community.

“If the NIH cuts remain in place, they will damage our fragile economy and threaten our nation’s position as the global leader in medical research,” said American Heart Association President Donna Arnett, Ph.D., MSPH. “More importantly, medical research is vital to discovering new treatments and even cures for generations to come. We must not give up the fight to increase federal support for the NIH.”

Advocates also asked Congress to fund a $35 million Million Hearts Initiative to tackle one of the nation’s most significant public health problems, high blood pressure. More than one in three adults in the United States have high blood pressure, but less than half have their condition under control. High blood pressure is one of the leading risk factors for heart attack or stroke.

MN Delegation: (from left to right) Mark Olson, Vicki Rivkin, Robert “Bobby Z” Rivkin, Dr. John Wheeler, AmandaJean B.

Information provided by the Amercan Heart Association

{Love Thy…..} Put a Lime in the Coconut Body Scrub

Posted on April 13, 2013 by NinjaInTheCity

Over the past year I have changed my diet, gone are the days of processed food and eating out almost every day. Instead I only shop the outer isles of the grocery store, buy organic, and buy local whenever possible. My diet is 85% clean and my health has immensely improved. I have more energy and weigh less. The number on he scale no longer matters to me, its how I feel about the person in the mirror that matters. Since I have cleaned up my diet I started to wonder what else I could do to improve my health and decrease my impact on the planet.

Enter the bathroom, I like every other woman on this planet have a cabinet full of lotions, potions, and serums that I use to improve the look of my skin. I like you can barely pronounce the ingredient list on the back of the bottles. Lush is one of my favorite stores and their natural bath products smell amazing. Now I can pronounce every ingredient that’s in a Lush product and know that it is free of chemicals. So I thought to myself……..”could I make my own body scrub?”

Google told me that it was possible, the recipes for homemade body scrubs were endless. I wanted it to be simple, something that I could throw together in under ten minutes. I don’t do complicated and I wanted a scrub that was budget friendly. After doing a little research, trial and error I came up with my own scrub.

I call it: Put a Lime in the Coconut Body Scrub

You will need four simple ingredients: Sugar, Salt, Coconut Oil, and the zest of 1 Lime.

Melt 1/4 cup of coconut oil in the microwave for about 1 minute.

Add 1/2 cup sugar to the melted coconut oil.

Add 1/2 cup salt to the sugar and coconut oil.

Add the zest of 1 lime to the salt, sugar, and coconut oil.

Stir the lime zest, salt, sugar, and coconut oil together.

Spoon the mixture into a jar, seal with an airtight lid, then store it in a cool dry place.

The sugar and salt smooth your rough spots, while the coconut oil hydrates your skin. I use the scrub about twice a week and it keeps my skin super soft. Plus the hit of lime will chase away the winter blues.

{Heart Month} To Survive or To Just Deal With It

Posted on February 7, 2013 by NinjaInTheCity

“Heaven knows that I ain’t perfect I’ve raised a little cain and I plan to raise a whole lot more.”

October 22, 2009 I was taught a tough lesson. Fate taught me that you can either face a problem head on or you can just deal with it. The difference between surviving and dealing is strength. It takes strength to fight back. I could have taken the woe is me route, but that’s not my style. I took the fight tooth and nail route. Survival was my only goal and I dealt with my PE and stroke head on with all cylinders burning. Failing meant life or death. I chose to live that day. I chose to not only survive but to thrive. If I had chosen to deal instead of survive my story might be different.

I like you, have my good and bad days. On bad days I ask myself “Are you having a stroke? No? Then this is not the worst day of your life.” Those words give me perspective, if I am not lying in ICU fighting for my life, than hell I am doing all right. My now former coworker once asked me “Do you ever have a bad day? You are always so positive and cheery?” Truth: I rarely have a bad day. Each day I wake up and grudgingly turn my alarm off is a blessing. Each day that I am standing above ground is a gift. I am living on borrowed time and I am not going to waste it on petty small things. This is my third chance at life and I’ll be damned if I spend it crabby. The fore mentioned is the difference between dealing and surviving. People who deal don’t realize how precious time is and they spend their days wasting away. Survivors thrive because they live each day like its their last and live until their heart bursts wide open. An that is why I never had a bad day. I can’t change the past and my future is best left up to fate.

I have to believe that my stroke and PE are part of some grand plan. I am a firm believer that the good Lord never gives us more than we can handle. I’ll never know why it happened or what my life would be like without it. There are days I wish for my pre PE and stroke life back. Then I think about all of the things I have done, places I’ve traveled, and all of the people I have met. Without the PE my story would be different. My PE and Stroke gave me the strength I needed to mourn the death of my son and it was the final whisper that got me to walk out of my loveless marriage. It allowed me to realize that I had the strength to handle anything and as long as I believed in myself I could never go wrong.

PE and Stroke will not define me. They are only a part of my story and they will not control my life. As a thriving survivor I can rewrite the story and bring a new definition of PE & Stroke survivor to the world. I can bust down stereotypes and help people realize that they affect more than just the elderly. I can stand up and fight for all of those who lost their lives so I could live mine.

Through out February there will be Heart events around the twin cities. When you see a young woman sitting at the American Heart Association table or someone with Survivor on their name tag ask her “What’s your story.” Do this and you will be pleasantly surprised by her fighting spirit and her desire to prevent other women from experiencing her fate. That is the difference between a dealer and a survivor. A dealer curls up and hides in hopes that tomorrow will be normal. A survivor stands up because she knows “No woman deserves to fight alone.”

{Hearts on 22} ~ National Wear RED Day

Posted on January 29, 2013 by NinjaInTheCity

Friday February 1st, 2013 is National wear Red Day.

For the past ten years I donned red on National Wear Red Day. I wore it in honor of my cousin Emma and for my Father. I wore red as a reminder that heart disease knows no age nor gender. Red was my color and I wore it proudly. To me I was making a difference by sharing my Father’s and Emma’s heart stories. To me I was giving back for the second chance that my Father was granted.

My Father’s name is Gregory James. He is the son of an Irish woman and a Ojibway Indian. He is one of 13 children who grew up on a farm outside of Lake City Minnesota. His childhood was far from perfect, his Father was always to drunk to care and well his Mama, they only love he knew was the back of her hand. If you ask him about his childhood he will tell you “I survived by staying one step ahead of my Ma.” He never sugar-coated his life for my sister and I. You see my father was diagnosed with ADHD in the late 50’s. My Daddy was considered a throw away and no one ever thought he’d amount too much.

With only a 10th grade education he set out to conquer the world. He got a job in Minneapolis, lived in the YMCA, and learned that life was tough. Somewhere between Minneapolis and meeting my Mama he earned the nick name “Animal.” I’ve heard stories, but my Father has yet to deny or confirm the tales. Since he was barely making it in the City he returned to the tiny river town. As fate would have it he would fancy a female dump truck driver named Sharon. My grandfather played match maker and before long they were married.

My father is a laborer. He knows nothing but factories and nursery fields.Yet he was gentil and kind. Always lending an ear, a helping hand and playing with my sister and I. My Father was sort of like a stay at home Dad. Often my Mama would work double shifts which left my Dad with two tired and hungry daughters. Our dinners consisted of steak, baked potatoes, and watered down Koolaide. He would also get us up and ready for school in the morning.

Fast forward about 18 years. My father was the proudest man in town. One daughter had just finished college and the other was just starting. This is when the bottom fell out. I knew the day my parents dropped me off at college that it would most likely be the last day I saw him alive. He had fallen on ill-health and with no insurance he did not go to a doctor. One can tell when the soul is slipping away. On February 8th my father was admitted to the hospital, in March 2002 he was taken to St. Mary’s hospital in Rochester by ambulance. He arrived barely clinging to life. This, this killed me because I was away at college. My Father aways told us “When all else fails pray.” I just fell to my knees and prayed. I asked God to take me instead to give my father one more chance at life. The odds were not in our favor. However each day he got better and better. We soon learned that he had suffered Ventricular fibrillation which lead to cardiogenic shock.

My Father had survived. At 50 he became a survivor and we were blessed with his life. The past eleven years have not been easy. As a family we have had our ups and downs. My Father is not the same man I grew up with. His memory has faded, he is no longer able to work, and a good day is when he does not repeat himself 300 times. Those days are hard to come by,yet we don’t complain. Each day we have him around is a blessing. His first granddaughter turned one on the 27th and he was so proud. Seeing them together makes my heart happy. Yet, I am reminded that there are thousands of Granddaughters who never got to meet their Grandpas. An that breaks my heart.

What breaks my heart even more is knowing that there are children who never got the chance to meet their Aunt. Heat Disease, Strokes, and Heart Attacks are robbing children of their Aunties. To me my Stroke is nothing compared to my Father’s courageous battle against Heart disease. Because of my Father my life was saved. If I had never volunteered with the heart association I would not have been aware of the symptoms of a stroke. Through my dedication to my Father my life was saved. We are living proof that research can and does save lives.

My Sister, My Mama, and I urge you to wear Red this Friday in honor of someone you love. Sophia would also like you to wear Red because she loves her Grandpa and Auntie very much. If that is not reason enough please wear red in honor of My Father’s niece Emma. Wear red in her memory and for the tomorrows she never got to see.

{Food For Thought} Blackberry Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

Posted on December 30, 2012 by NinjaInTheCity

If you are like me your mornings are pretty hectic. I have to get myself ready for work, walk the dog, and some how find time for breakfast. Most mornings my breakfast consist of a cup of coffee and that’s about it. My Keurig is a blessing, if I could I would marry that thing. But since its not legal for a woman to marry a coffee maker, I’ll settle for our best friends for life relationship.

Strolling through the breakfast isle I noticed that there are over 100 different types of breakfast bars. I rarely buy processed food items, except for breakfast bars. They come in handy when you need to quell the beast in your stomach. Since my diet consist of mostly heart healthy foods I always look for the heart check label. Reading the ingredients is important to me, well except for when I have no idea what half the shit is. Intimidated by hydrogenated oils and other things I couldn’t pronounce I put the box down. I thought to myself “I can probably make breakfast bars from scratch.” So I set off on a web search to find a good breakfast bar recipe. There are a lot of different versions out there from easy to complicated. I don’t like complicated breakfast bars. After trial and error I came up with a recipe that worked for me and my time commitment. Time is precious around here.

Blackberry Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

Servings: 8 – 10
Prep Time: 20 minutes (that’s fast folks!)
Bake Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups black berry jam, or any type of jam you prefer

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. In a large bowl mix everything together, but the jam.
3. Take 2 cups of the mixture and press it into the bottom of an 8 inch square pan, coated with cooking spray.
4. Spread the jam evenly over the top of the firmly pressed mixture.
5. Take remaining mixture and spread it over the jam, press down lightly.
6. Bake for 25 minutes
7. let the bars cool for 15 minutes and cut into squares.

Have Bear Will Travel

She had to break, so I could shine

Category Archives: Heart Health