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Private Concert in NYC? Yes, Please!
To kick off heart month, I had the honor of being invited to attend a private event and concert in none other than New York City!!! How exciting!!! Shortly before the big day, we found out that Sheryl Crow would be headlining the private concert and Rita Ora would also be performing!!
The reason I was invited to attend this event is that normally when you are selected to be a Go Red For Women Real Woman, your class gets a free trip to NYC for the red dress event. Since I was the class of 2021, during the pandemic, there was no travel allowed for us that year. I was so excited when they extended the invitation to our class in 2023. And thank you to the Real Women Class of 2023 for sharing the spotlight with 2021 and 2022.
The event had wonderful food, an open bar (I had to get a glass of Prosecco), and the concert. It was a small venue that overlooked the city outside. Very beautiful! Rita Ora was fantastic and Sheryl was amazing! I was never a huge fan of her until I saw her perform that night and she was spectacular! And luckily, I knew all the songs! During the concert, various celebrities modeled red dresses for us from the red dress collection. It was unreal!
My feet were killing me by the end of the night, but what a night it was! I was elated to meet my fellow Real Women Class of 2021 since we had only met virtually throughout the year. What a great group of heart sisters.
Thank you to American Heart Association for a lovely evening.
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What is Your Why?
What is your why?
My why is…a second chance at life.
I owe this to the wonderful research that is being done for heart disease and stroke and funded by American Heart Association. If you’d like to contribute to this research that may have been the reason I have a second chance at life, please click the link below to donate now. The Heart Walk is a few weeks away and I’m trying to raise as much as I can before November 12.
http://www2.heart.org/goto/KimbyJagnandan
Thank you!!
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WomenHeart Champion 2022 Training Complete!
I had the pleasure and honor of training to be a WomenHeart Champion recently at the 20th Anniversary of the Science & Leadership Symposium. I spent 4 days in Rochester, Minnesota (yes, it was cold) and got to tour the Mayo Clinic in addition to getting trained by Mayo Clinic staff!
We had great Q&A sessions, learned how to write/tell our story, and learned how to talk to other women survivors of heart disease. I also met lots of new heart sisters (that was the best part).
The weekend ended with a graduation dinner where we received our official name tags and pins. What a great weekend of camaraderie and heart-to-heart talks. Be sure to check back for more updates with WomenHeart.
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What Does YOUR Generosity Do?
When you donate to American Heart Association’s annual Heart Walk, this is what your generosity does:
Saves the lives of kids with heart defects Helps prevent strokes and heart attacks Trains thousands in life-saving CPR Funds the next big medical breakthrough Champions equitable access to healthcare Thank you for your generosity.
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What Do the Faces of Heart Disease Look Like?
They look like this……These men are all brothers, all have heart disease, all would later go on to have multiple by-pass open-heart surgeries, and 1 passed away from a massive heart attack the year before I had mine.Only 2 of these brothers are alive today – both dealing with heart disease and taking medications on a daily basis. My dad is the one on the far left, and my Uncle Neville is on the far right. (The two in the middle are my Uncle Edward and Uncle Norris.) My dad and Uncle Neville are the sole survivors of their siblings. Their sister also had heart disease and by-pass surgery, but she was not present for this pic.These siblings inherited heart disease from their parents (my grandparents) who had heart disease and each underwent at least one multiple by-pass operation.Heart disease seems to be so common – I think every other person I meet has a story about heart disease or a stroke in their family.This is why I walk every year in the Orlando Heart Walk. This is why I’m walking again this year! Please consider donating to the fight to eradicate heart disease and stroke. -
Fundraising for Orlando Heart Walk 2022 is On!
Once again, I have set the goal at $5000 for my Orlando Heart Walk team. Picture below of me at the 2021 Orlando Heart Walk next to my sign!
The Heart Walk is always so much fun! I like to meet up with my fellow Heart Sisters from American Heart Association’s Passion Committee so I can have good company and conversation during the 5K walk.
Sometimes, the American Heart Association asks me to do media interviews. Here’s the one I did before the Heart Walk last year – although, I never saw it, but I was told that it aired.
If you would like to join my team and walk with me the day of the Heart Walk, please let me know. OR…you can donate any amount at the link below, and that will go towards the $5000 goal that I’ve set for 2022. Help me reach my goal this year! The pandemic caused me to come up short the last couple of years. But please consider donating any amount you can afford. All donations are greatly appreciated. Maybe sacrifice an Uber Eats or Door Dash order and put that money where you know it will have an impact. I’m living proof!
Orlando Heart Walk Team Page for Kimby Jagnandan – Click here to donate.
Thank you!
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CPR Info and My CPR Anytime Kit
Even though CPR and AED Awareness Week was the first week of June, I think it’s important to be aware year-round. I recently received my CPR Anytime Kit from the American Heart Association, and I wanted to share it with you along with some important information that I received from them. You can get your own CPR Anytime Kit at http://www.shopheart.org – what a great teaching tool for your family!
Important information about CPR from AHA:
- Only about 46% of people who experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest receive the immediate help that they need before professional help arrives.
- About 70% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen in homes. If you are called on to give CPR in an emergency, you will most likely be trying to save the life of someone you love: a child, a spouse, a parent or a friend. CPR, especially if performed immediately, could double or triple a cardiac arrest victim’s chance of survival.
- Women are also less likely to receive CPR from a bystander. Barriers include fear of legal ramifications and accusations of inappropriate touching.
- Adult & Child CPR Anytime kits contain everything you need to learn the lifesaving skills of CPR, AED awareness, and choking relief in about 20 minutes in the comfort of your own home. The self-guided training takes you through the steps – all you need to do is practice.
- You can learn more about CPR and where to find training near you at cpr.heart.org.
Make it a goal this summer to train your family in CPR. You never know when it might be needed and whose life it might save.
This is everything from the kit. The adult dummy is super easy to inflate and quickly deflates to easily pack away. -
Orlando Heart Walk 2019!
It’s that time again! I’ve registered for the 2019 Orlando Heart Walk! I’ve done the Heart Walk every year since my heart attack, and each year I’ve been able to increase my donation goal because of YOU! This year, my goal is set for $6000! I’m a little over half way there already, and I need YOUR help…please!
The Orlando Heart Walk will be in November, so we still have a few months to raise the money. Every little bit helps. Feel free to share this post on your social media, share the link with your friends and family, do whatever you can do to help out. Every dollar counts. AND…your donation is tax deductible!
Click here to donate now: http://www2.heart.org/goto/TeamKimbyJagnandan
You may ask, “Where do my contributions go?”
*Getting up-to-the-minute research into doctors’ hands so they can better present and treat heart disease among patients.
*Groundbreaking pediatric heart and stroke research that is key to saving babies’ lives.
*Providing information that can save a life like how to eat better, how to recognize the warning signs of a heart attack, and how to talk to a doctor about critical health choices.
*Funding research programs that have contributed to many important scientific advances, such as the first artificial heart valve.
(information taken from http://www.heart.org)
As a heart attack survivor, I can say that I’ve seen these dollars at work. They may have even contributed to saving my life!
So, please donate today. And thank you so much for your continued support with my annual ask.
Donate now: http://www2.heart.org/goto/TeamKimbyJagnandan
THANK YOU!
Kimby
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5 Year Heart Anniversary
Today is the 5 year anniversary of my heart attack. Five years ago today I was fighting for my life at Dr Phillips Hospital – surrounded by amazing cardiologists, an attentive team of nurses, medical professionals, and staff, including a hospital chaplain, who all saved my life. The doctors say I’m a miracle.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened to me that day. And I’m so thankful that I can celebrate five years of a healthy life!
Tomorrow is never promised.
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I Tried HeartGuide for 2 Weeks and This is What Happened
I am excited to partner with Omron on this initiative.
I was recently given HeartGuide, the firs wearable blood pressure monitor, to wear for 2 weeks. Have you heard about this? It’s FDA-cleared and it’s new on the market. It’s a wearable blood pressure monitor that is a wristwatch and links to the Omron HeartAdvisor app that you download to your smartphone.
Here I am trying out HeartGuide for the very first time…at a restaurant! As a heart attack survivor and someone who used to have to check my blood pressure daily for weeks following my heart attack, I was excited to get this device and start monitoring my blood pressure again on a daily basis. I eagerly took it out of the box, downloaded the app, synced the device to my smartphone, and immediately tried it out! I have to say that I was hooked instantly.
The monitor is so quiet and unassuming. Over the 2 weeks that I wore HeartGuide, I took my blood pressure everywhere – in the airport, at work, in my car (it was parked), in bed, on my couch, in the waiting room of my Dr’s office, at a restaurant – and no one around me ever suspected a thing. I was obsessed. I took my blood pressure at LEAST twice a day but usually 3 or 4 times a day. If it seemed a little high for my liking, I would take it again a few minutes later after calming myself down and relaxing and the numbers would go down. It was great to see how the numbers fluctuated with different factors – sodium intake, activity, anxiety, relaxation, etc.
Every night before I went to bed, I would go into the app where there is a prompt that says “tell us about your day” and I would complete the super short questionnaire where you check off boxes and answer whether or not you took medication, drank fluids, exercised, etc. This helps the app determine trends in your blood pressure numbers over a period of time. A cool feature of the app is that it will give you daily insights. For instance, it told me that my blood pressure tends to be high on Tuesdays. So then I can go back and think about what I’m doing on Tuesdays that may cause my blood pressure to be higher on those particular days. I determined that it was probably because I have an acting class on Tuesday nights and I’m always very nervous during the day leading up to and through the class because you have to perform monologues and scenes in class. So it makes sense!
I was obsessed with HeartGuide and loved wearing it everyday! On one of the last nights that I was wearing the HeartGuide, I actually got an irregular heartbeat detected during my blood pressure reading. This happens when an irregular rhythm is detected 2 or more times during a blood pressure measurement. This really freaked me out, and I proceeded to take my blood pressure 6 more times that night to see if an irregular heartbeat was detected again, which it was not…thank goodness! But this is definitely something that I will want to share with my doctor since it is not normal for me to have an irregular heartbeat.
Did I mention that HeartGuide also monitors your sleep pattern (yes, I wore it to bed every night) and tracks your fitness? I set a goal for my daily steps and reached it almost everyday! Now you can see why I was so obsessed with HeartGuide!
If you want to learn more about HeartGuide and Omron’s Going for Zero pledge, visit their website: Omron Healthcare
