WALTERS HOPES HEART PROBLEMS WILL SERVE AS WARNING
Veteran U.S. newswoman BARBARA WALTERS hopes her recent heart surgery wil l serve as a warning to other women to get themselves checked out.
The 80 year old underwent an operation in May (10) to replace a faulty heart valve, shortly after announcing news of her condition on U.S. TV sh ow The View.
Walters has now fully recovered, but she’s hoping her health struggles will encourage other women to be more aware of their heart, because she h ad virtually no symptoms prior to her diagnosis.
She explains to U.S. newsman Larry King, "I didn’t have the symptoms. O ne of the things - without going through every detail - but one of the th ings I hope (to do is raise awareness that) women have different symptoms than men. Did you know that? "They talk about, you know, a pain in the arm. Women have other things.
Women have fatigue. Women have sweats and so forth. I had almost no symp toms. And I’d gone to the doctor, had an echo cardiogram. And he said you ‘ve got a valve that’s getting smaller. And I said, well, you know, I can wait. Maybe next year and so forth. And I have no symptoms." But Walters became concerned when she walked to work with two of her fr iends one day and became out of breath: "One day, I said to them, ‘I feel a little pressure in my chest, do you?’ And they said, ‘No’. And when I went to the doctor, he said, you know, that’s a sign. And just to make th is story short, I was thinking of doing it in the summer… And he said, you can wait, but there’s a small risk that you could drop dead." (KD/WN
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