In this space we love sharing our work with you; testimonials, behind-the-scenes action, trends, tools and photos that tell the stories of our busy lives as professional home stagers. But this Blog Post is a little different than previous entries – a little closer to our heart. Literally.
Our co-owner Cindy Stocker inspires us every day. As Senior Property Stylist and Managing Director, she is so busy, but juggles her non-stop work load and all-important personal life beautifully.
As someone who is a seemingly perfect picture of health, it affected us to the core when she suffered a heart attack last week at the tender age of 48.
Thankfully she was able to receive emergency help in time, and is currently resting at home as the proud owner of two state of the art stents in her right coronary artery.
The only upside of surprising and scary moments like these is that we can turn them into teaching tools. Heart attacks do not just afflict the elderly in poor health. Cindy exercised regularly and ate a healthy diet. With a family history of heart disease she knew she needed to be proactive with her health so she kept in contact with a cardiologist and carefully monitored her cholesterol.
As women and owners of a thriving business, we train ourselves to go, go, go and never want to let anything slow our pace or affect deadlines. Looking back at the past few weeks Cindy realized she missed two warning signs of the impending heart attack.
The first was a dizzy spell with nausea during a workout two weeks prior to the attack. The next sign was a painful backache a week later that she treated with a back rub from her husband. Seemingly innocent ailments that spelled out an impending disaster thankfully halted due to good emergency care and medicine.
While Cindy recovers, we won’t miss a step with Jennifer McPherson and Caroline Roussy taking the reins of our fantastic team. We are so grateful that this scare has a happy ending and we eagerly await the return of our wonderfully bionic friend.
The silent killer isn’t so silent when we talk about it and share our stories in the hopes that they could help someone avoid such a terrifying ordeal. For more information about cardiac arrest and its warning signs, please speak to your doctor, watch this amazing video (Just a little Heart Attack) and take a look at the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation website.