Listen to my Mark: Get your heart checked out

Mark Sanchez shared his heart with me Sunday afternoon, and I can't stop thinking about him.

Sorry to dump details of my personal life on you, but I felt such a connection to him that I just to share this with you.

Mark, as you may know, is the quarterback of the New York Jets. He's 23 years old, and he has dreamy brown eyes. He told me in no uncertain terms that I'm important to him. I could hear his heart beating as he spoke.

OK, so he wasn't talking to just me. He was talking to the millions of women who watched the Super Bowl on Sunday. He was reminding us that our symptoms of heart attack can be different than those of men. He urged us to learn more about it.

In mid-November, my family unwittingly enrolled in a crash course in cardiology after our 18-year-old daughter complained of "heart palpitations." After repeated complaints, I took her to the doctor. Her electrocardiogram was abnormal, as were the echocardiogram and the cardiac MRI that followed. The diagnosis was hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is a thickening of the heart muscle. The thickening makes it harder for blood to leave the heart, which forces the heart to work harder to pump blood.

Between that and another complicating factor, she was advised that she needed an implantable cardiodefibrillator. She had that surgery last month, and she's doing great.

This condition is congenital. Many times, there are no symptoms. In young people, the first symptom can be sudden collapse and possible death. Since our daughter's diagnosis, our entire family has undergone testing.

As it turns out, I have it, too. My doctors tell me I've had it my whole life, although I've had no symptoms. Later this week, I, too, will have surgery to implant a cardiac defibrillator to help reduce my risk of heart attack.

While I joke about my weekend encounter with Mark Sanchez (alas, I'm old enough to be his mother!), his message was highly important. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women. It kills more women over 65 than do all cancers combined. Women are six times more likely to die of heart disease as breast cancer.

Heart attack symptoms in women can be somewhat different than those of men. A common heart attack symptom in men and women is pain, pressure or discomfort in the chest.

According to the Mayo Clinic Web site, women are more likely than men to have symptoms unrelated to chest pain such as neck, shoulder, upper back or abdominal discomfort. They may experience shortness of breath, unusual fatigue, nausea or vomiting, or lightheadedness or dizziness.