DETROIT – The Go Red for Women initiative was formed by the American Heart Association 20 years ago to raise awareness of heart disease and strokes as the number one killer of women with the goal to save as many lives as possible through that awareness and education.
To help spread that awareness, Local 4′s Rhonda Walker took the opportunity to sit down with two Metro Detroit Go Red for Women campaign ambassadors. She spoke with Denise Brooks-Williams of Henry Ford Health System and Ronia Kruse, Founder and CEO of Optech, to learn about their heartbreaking family stories and why they believe the initiative is so important.
“My journey has been really understanding more and being able to be helpful for myself and my daughters,” said Williams. “Because when you have a family history, you do at least have the opportunity to make it better for the next generation.”
The Williams family has a history with heart disease, tragically losing three relatives, all women, including Brooks-Willams’ 30-year-old sister. She wants to break the family history to stop its impact on future generations in her family and the community.
Both Brooks-Williams and Kruse emphasized the importance of understanding the symptoms leading to strokes or heart attacks through their own stories about loved one’s encounters with the disease.
“Had she known the symptoms, we could have rushed her to the hospital and reversed the stroke,” Kruse stated when thinking back to her mother’s incident, “Unfortunately, she’s paralyzed today, and it’s heart wrenching, because it’s something that could have been reversed.”
Heart disease is something that can present itself in different ways for different people, it can affect anyone, even those that are healthy, and a great deal of people aren’t aware that they are susceptible.
“We had an employee in her thirties have a heart attack, you wouldn’t think at that age,” Kruse said.
A woman at Kruse’s business, Optech, suffered a heart attack. Kruse went on to mention that the heart attack came as a shock and was nearly fatal, leaving the woman in a coma.
“She was very healthy . . . She wasn’t aware she was part of the 45% that are not aware that they have some kind of heart issue,” Kruse said.
The woman that suffered the heart attack has made a fantastic recovery, but it highlights how heart disease can still have an affect on people who are otherwise healthy.
“We hear, sadly, sometimes of young people who are athletes that had enlarged hearts, or had, you know, arrhythmia issues that they were unaware of,” Brooks-Williams said. “I think awareness matters, because people do unfortunately carry it and have no idea.”
To continue to raise awareness, and teach more about heart health and risks, there will be a Go Red for Women Luncheon on Wednesday, March 13, at Huntington Place in Downtown Detroit hosted by WDIV’s Rhonda Walker.
For more information and how to get tickets visit heart.org.