It wasn't just back and stomach pain – it was a heart attack

Barbara Bassin wondered if her back pain came from the day her granddaughter didn't want to walk on the hot patio, so she picked her up. Or maybe it came from the day she pushed her grandson's stroller up a big hill at the zoo.

As for her ongoing stomach pain, she figured it was caused by something she ate.

Since heartburn was her nemesis, she went to a gastroenterologist. At the visit, she asked about her stomach and back hurting at the same time.

"Could I be having a heart attack?" Bassin said.

The doctor assured her that was not the case, instead sending her away with a new prescription. While she felt dismissed, Bassin got the medicine before leaving for a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. As she and her husband, Stan Appelbaum, were driving from their home in Bethesda, Maryland, she felt it was working.

When Bassin arrived, she tried eating a bagel. She took one bite, and it wouldn't go down. She stuck to small bits of soft foods after that.

Over the weekend, her back pain intensified.

On Monday, Appelbaum drew her a bath with Epson salts, lavender oil and baking soda. He wanted to go for a walk on the beach and needed to be sure she was OK being left alone. She nodded.

Soon, she felt nauseous. She began sweating. Her back pain was intolerable.

"Come home! Come home! Come home!" Bassin texted repeatedly.

Appelbaum saw the third text and ran back.

"This pain is worse than labor," she said.

Appelbaum called 911.

Although the nearest hospital was an hour away, six paramedics from a fire station arrived quickly. They hooked Bassin up to an electrocardiogram, or ECG. One of them handed the printout of Bassin's heart activity to another, who ran outside.

"Your wife is having a heart attack, and it's a very bad one," the paramedic told Appelbaum.

They gave Bassin medicine before loading her into the ambulance and inserting IVs. Instead of the long drive to the hospital, they went to the fire station where a medical helicopter was waiting. They flew her over the Atlantic Ocean to a heart hospital in Norfolk, Virginia.

After landing on the roof of the hospital, Bassin had one request: "Don't let me die like Bruce."

Bruce was Bassin's brother, who'd died of a heart attack in 1998 at age 40 while waiting in line at Dulles International Airport. It wasn't the family's first instance of heart disease. Their father survived a heart attack at 34; at 60, he underwent bypass surgery.

Now, on July 1, 2019, Barbara Bassin – then 67 – was the one in serious trouble.

The medical team rushed her to the catheterization lab. A cardiologist inserted a stent in her blocked artery. When the procedure ended, Bassin was pain-free.

She told a nurse that the medicine was doing its job.

"Oh no," the nurse said. "It doesn't hurt because you've got good blood flow now."

Bassin returned home after a couple of days. For two months, she attended a specialized cardiac rehabilitation program two and a half hours away that included exercise and meditation and focused on eating more low-fat, plant-based foods. She took note of her mental health after such a traumatic experience.

Months later, she returned to the North Carolina fire station to thank the first responders. They told her she was in bad shape, and they didn't know if she would make it. They calculated that she'd gotten to the hospital with five minutes to spare.

In November 2019, her back pain returned. She was diagnosed with back spasms. She received a cortisone shot and felt relief.

The next morning, as she took a bite of oatmeal, she felt a weird sensation from her back up to her neck and head.

Again, Appelbaum called 911, and an ambulance rushed Bassin to the emergency room. She was initially treated for back pain with morphine, which did nothing for her pain. A couple of hours later, a doctor handed her a tablet and said, "Put this under your tongue."

Bassin was given nitroglycerin because a blood test had detected high levels of a cardiac enzyme that indicates a heart attack. She was again taken to a catheterization lab. It turned out that the stent she'd received had become blocked.

That night, she cried hysterically: "I had two heart attacks. I'm going to die! What's going to make me not have a third heart attack?"

Ten months later, her family got her into the Cleveland Clinic for a complete workup. Bassin underwent a stress test and had blood work done. Doctors explained that a blood disease that ran in her family and that she was being treated for may have caused a clot, which in turn could've caused her heart attack. Bassin was put on stronger blood thinners.

Answering the medical questions gave her some peace of mind. Yet it took longer to adjust to the traumas she'd experienced.

Bassin's eyes welled with tears whenever she heard a helicopter. She would freeze at an ambulance siren. She couldn't sit in the chair where the medics attended to her in North Carolina.

She clung to the words of a therapist in cardiac rehab who told her she was a "badass" for surviving two heart attacks.

Her eldest daughter, Jenna Newman, emphasized that her mother's symptoms, especially before the second heart attack, weren't taken seriously enough by the medical community.

"Women, we get told all the time, 'Oh, it's all in your head,' or 'It's hormones,' or, 'Be a good patient. Don't push back.' … And her intuition was telling her something was wrong," Newman said.

Now, five years out from her first heart attack, Bassin has a clear message for others.

"If there is any question, call 911 and get to the hospital quickly," she said. "If it turns out to be indigestion, muscle strain, a panic attack, you'll probably go home. But if it's a heart attack, you'll be given the critical care you need to help save your life."

Stories From the Heart chronicles the inspiring journeys of heart disease and stroke survivors, caregivers and advocates.