00:00We are here to talk about the American Heart Association today.
00:08Yeah.
00:09Tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing,
00:11because it does affect so many black women in a very direct way.
00:14Oh, yeah.
00:15Well, I've been working with the American Heart Association in Novartis for a while now.
00:20And it's like, what the HF?
00:22You know what I mean?
00:23Which is a new campaign that we have.
00:26HF stands for heart failure.
00:28And so, you know, my mom was diagnosed with heart failure.
00:32It was a complete shock to us.
00:35It was the last thing we sort of expected.
00:37But she passed out in school one day.
00:39You know, she was a teacher, a high school teacher, and she kind of just took a dive one day.
00:43Once she came to the hospital, all of these diagnoses, you know, the diagnosis finally came out.
00:47And that's what was going on.
00:49And so initially it was shock and fear.
00:52And then it was like, okay, what do we do?
00:55So there are a lot of things that you can do.
00:57And there are a lot of people who are living with heart failure and living great lives.
01:02And you just have to kind of be aware of what's going on.
01:04So we've been encouraging people to go to riseabovehf.org.
01:09Take this simple quiz, five questions, you know, and find out what your status is with heart failure.
01:15And, you know, share it.
01:17Share it with other people, you know, using the hashtag riseabovehf.
01:21Share it with your friends.
01:22Share it with your family.
01:23Share the information with each other, you know.
01:26And that's important for us.
01:27But there's some simple things that you can do to kind of stem this thing and keep yourself out of the hospital, which is what we want.
01:35A lot of us are getting hospitalized when we don't need to go in.
01:38If we could just kind of be aware, like swelling on your ankles, seeing swelling or gaining like three pounds overnight.
01:44Hmm.
01:45Call the doctor.
01:46You know, take your medicines as directed on time.
01:49Don't skip, you know.
01:51But some of these things really can help prevent you from going into the hospital.
01:55And salt.
01:56You know, we love some salt on food.
01:58We put salt on our food before we've even tasted it.
02:00Yes, ma'am.
02:01No, we got to break out of that.
02:02You know, we got to kind of cut back on that because that's something that helps you retain water.
02:07And that's not good for heart failure patients, you know.
02:10Absolutely.
02:11And can you speak a little bit, because I know you're big on fitness as well.
02:13Is that sort of like something that you feel like can be easily, like, is it walking a little bit every day?
02:19How can that also be a part of?
02:21Exercise helps everything.
02:22Yeah.
02:23Period.
02:24You know, I mean, you have to obviously, as a patient, you need to consult your doctor to make sure what kind of level of physical fitness you're able to attain.
02:31I will not begin to get into that, you know.
02:34So I think everything is good to kind of consult your doctor when you plan on starting a fitness regimen or doing anything like that.
02:40But, yeah, walking, taking it easy, but just being active as much as you can helps circulation.
02:47Of course, it would help with something like that, which, you know, kind of hinders circulation.
02:51So, yeah, those things would be very helpful, I would think.
02:5410 people, I would think.
02:5510 people, I would think.
02:58You
Comments