Middle Aged Woman living with Heart Failure

Hi, my name is Sheila! I want you to join me in my journey of living with heart disease.  I am not a Doctor or a Lawyer, I am a middle-aged woman living with heart failure. Wife, mom, volunteer and blogger.  I love my life!

As you may know, being a middle-aged woman with heart disease is not easy.  But we can live this journey together!  Seven years ago I was not in a good place in my life.  I was diagnosed with Dilated Cardiomyopathy (heart failure), my husband was diagnosed with cancer and my Dad passed away.  I was blessed to be raising three teenagers at the time too!  We all know life can be overwhelming but when told you to have a chronic illness, it is like being hit by a MACK truck. Today I am doing really well physically and emotionally, I want to help you with your journey too.  

I want to tell you about my upbringing so you get to know me and my story.  I was born in the late 1960s in a small town in South Dakota.  My mom and dad were amazing parents and gave us a great life, it was all about us.  I am the middle child of five kids in my family.  Life was great growing up in South Dakota.  I was raised in a traditional family.  We traveled in a brown paneled station wagon.  I was never on a plane until I went to college.  We had a babysitter named Vera who babysat us until she died.  We had a golden retriever named Dominique and a cat named Snow White.

I was a very active kid.  Sports were my favorite pastime while growing up.  I loved softball and basketball.  In fifth grade, I ran the mile run at the High School Cross Country meet and I won the race.  I then ran Cross Country and Track for the rest of High School and yes I was a small-town cheerleader.

In 1990 I graduated from college.  After graduating from college, I went to Chicago for  paralegal school.  I worked as a paralegal for 26 years. I socially ran for exercise.  When I turned 26 years old I decided it was time to train and run a marathon.  I finished the Twin Cities Marathon in 1994.  I enjoyed my single life traveling for fun and work.

In 2001, I married my husband Tom.  He is an extremely supportive, kind and loving husband.  The best dad to our kids. We have had a great life together!  We have three amazing children.  Together we have a lot of fun traveling, being active, dining out, and love of family and friends.  During our marriage, I trained for and ran the Twin Cities Marathon in 2001 and 2006.

You may ask why she thinks I care that she ran 3 marathons.  I want to highlight that I was physically active and living a normal life without any heart-related symptoms except when training for my third marathon in 2006. My journey of living with heart disease began……