Red Day a matter of the heart at Manulife LPGA Classic
Posted Jun 9, 2017 03:43:41 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Fran Gregory knew something was wrong a few years ago when she began to experience the worst pain she’d ever felt behind her shoulder blade.
It was when she collapsed outside the lecture room at Conestoga College where she teaches that she realized she was having a heart attack.
Gregory is a spokesperson for Red Day, which raises funds and awareness of the serious risk of heart disease in women. Because like most women, Gregory didn’t know she was at risk.
She tells 570 News she never saw herself as a candidate for heart disease. The 60-year-old communications professor had always been active and felt she was in control of her health. But within hours of experiencing that horrible stabbing pain, she was undergoing triple by-pass surgery at St. Mary’s General Hospital.
“When I think back on it, I did have some symptoms… but so subtle,” says Gregory. “That’s the unique message to women I think, is that we do have more subtle signs of heart problems that need to be addressed.”
Gregory is sharing her story in hopes that if more women know about heart disease, the better chance they have at beating it.
“The fact that I recognized the signs first of all and that we have a hospital with a cardiac care centre right here in our city,” she says, “is truly the reason I’m here today.”
Red Day started in 2013 as an initiative between St. Mary’s General Hospital Foundation and the Manulife LPGA Classic, with players, spectators and volunteers wearing red in support of women’s heart health. As of Friday morning, $64,000 had been raised, according to Mary Desjardins with Manulife, who adds the company will match those donations up to $80,000.
“There’s almost an epidemic around women and heart health,” Desjardins says, “so we really wanted to shine a light on that.”
