By Ed Karvoski Jr., Contributing Writer
Photo/submitted
Westborough – Chrissy Gaffney, currently of Worcester, was happy to attend her 30-year reunion of the Westborough High School class of 1984, held Oct. 11 at the Hampton Inn in Natick. She shared with some classmates that it was only three months after her third heart surgery.
“I’m very proud to say that I’m a heart disease survivor,” said Gaffney, a 2014 spokesperson for the Go Red for Women campaign of the American Heart Association. “When you open up that conversation about heart disease, so many people are immediately receptive and want to share their stories, whether it be their own personal experience or they lost a close relative to heart disease.”
Her own first experience was open-heart surgery at age 12 for an atrial septic defect, which was undetected at birth. A symptom was difficulty breathing while in sixth-grade gym class.
“The gym teacher called the nurse, she called my parents and I went home,” Gaffney relayed. “That’s how they took care of things then. I was sick growing up and my parents knew there was something else going on. Thank God they brought me to a cardiologist, who diagnosed my heart condition and said that I needed heart surgery as soon as possible.”
While the condition was always a concern, she grew up without physical restrictions and was an active basketball player. At age 45 in 2011, she began gaining weight and decided to walk the track at her sons’ school.
“I felt a crushing pain on my chest,” she recalled. “I didn’t call 911 because I was worried that my boys would see the ambulance and my car at the track, and know it was me.”
She drove herself home and shrugged off the incident as being out of shape.
“To this day, my husband and I are kicking ourselves that we didn’t go to the emergency room,” she acknowledged. “It was being naïve to some signs and symptoms of heart disease.”
Two weeks later, she was diagnosed with atrial flutter and underwent a cardioversion.
Beginning last Memorial Day weekend, she again experienced atrial flutter. This time it required medication and a catheter ablation in July.
“I had just a little bump in the road since that surgery,” she noted, “but I can honestly say that I feel the best I’ve felt in 10 years and the medicine is definitely working.”
Gaffney volunteers for a number of causes. She and her husband Steve are the parents of three children: Danny, 16; Sean, 14; and Erin, 13. When Danny was 14 in 2012, she brought him to a program in Auburn for youth heart screenings.
“It brought back memories of being a 12-year-old and hearing that I needed open-heart surgery,” she said. “I was hoping my son wouldn’t hear that news. The cardiologist read his EKG and everything was normal.”
Soon after, Gaffney and two other mothers, Donna Anderson and Karen Tougas, founded Youth Heart Watch of Central Massachusetts. The all-volunteer, nonprofit organization provides free heart screenings for active youth ages 14 to 24 to help prevent sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).
“We want to make it worthwhile and screen up to about 150 kids at each event,” she said. “It’s best when it’s based with a school community and different sports clubs can certainly get involved. We’re most proud that we’re all volunteers, trying to raise awareness about SCA and help these kids.”
Gaffney intends to continue her mission of raising awareness.
“Heart disease is a silent killer because we’re not aware enough of the symptoms,” she said.
For more information about Youth Heart Watch, visit youthheartwatch.org.
