Woman with huge heart celebrates year of life after heart attack

STILLWATER — Forty eight year old Sandi Livingston has a huge heart. The Stillwater resident is loved by her family, friends and community and does things like calling rather than texting friends and asking of them, “Let me know if there's anything I can do for you.”

She also works two jobs to make ends meet.

Several years ago, Livingston was diagnosed with breast cancer. She beat it, but nearly died of a heart attack on Jan. 27, 2014. As she recently celebrated a heart felt anniversary leading into Healthy Heart Month, she remembered what had transpired and had some words of wisdom for women.

Heart AttackAfter Thanksgiving dinner in November 2013, Livingston had some weird chest pains. They went away, so she dismissed them as an aftermath of the holiday meal. Fast forward to January 2014.

Livingston was stressed. She was stressed about money, having enough oil to fuel the home she shared with her youngest daughter and stressed about life. She'd been sick too, which didn't help matters. A cough had persisted for several weeks and she'd tried self medicating.

Finally, her kids insisted she go to the emergency room. She did and after chest x-rays, she was told she had a really bad chest cold and was sent home with a prescription for cough medicine. Because she wasn't feeling well, a friend went with her to Shop Rite to collect the medicine and while there Livingston complained that her chest felt tight. The friend insisted she go home and get some sleep.

Livingston couldn't sleep. She started getting pains up her neck and then she had a scary revelation.

“It was like a whirlwind,” she said, “I started remembering things I'd read about women and heart attacks and how their symptoms are different from men's symptoms and some of them were pains in the neck and jaw.”

Soon her jaw felt funny too.
Now, Livingston was getting really scared. She called another friend, Dianne Jones, to talk through what she was experiencing. Had Jones not answered that call, Livingston would have died. After describing the pain, Jones stayed on the line with Livingston and from her other phone called 911.

“What happened next was kind of serial,” Livingston said, “I somehow gated the dogs in the kitchen and unlocked the door as it all started to seem only half real.”

She stayed on the phone with Jones, half coherent, as she waited for the paramedics.

They arrived and by now Livingston wasn't doing well. They took her vitals and administered nitro and morphine but nothing was working.

That's when a paramedic about the age of her son rose to the occasion.

“He just kind of took over and told everyone that there wasn't time and 'she needs to fly out,'” Livingston said.

He called a helicopter and then directed others to shovel Livingston's walk so they could get her into a wheel chair, out of the house, into an ambulance and to Lodestar Park, in Fredon, where a chopper was waiting.

Livingston was taken to the emergency room at Morristown Memorial Hospital where a doctor told her she had 100 percent blockage in her heart. He put a stint in through her pelvis, all the while talking to her to explain what he was doing. Though in a fog, she appreciated that and as the stint hit her heart she said, “It was the most amazing feeling of relief.”

The doctor said he'd never seen anyone react so quickly. Livingston was going to be okay.

She spent the next five days in the hospital. The first night, a 45-year-old man down the hall died. Livingston was just so thankful to be alive. The doctor explained to her that all heart attack victims have a pie chart of factor that contributed to it. In her case, the biggest factors were heredity, the fact that she smoked and stress.

I'm Alive, I will LiveLivingston's mantra became, “I'm alive, I will live.”

She lost 30 pounds and stopped being afraid to put herself out there and began dating again. She loves her jobs at Quick Check and working for Crossroads Basketball.

“Working at Quick Check is kind of like being a bar tender. People from all different parts of your life come in and you get to catch up with them," Livingston said. "My other job is working for one of the most motivational people I know so I get a daily dose of positive.”

When it comes to her children, she gets choked up at the thought that if she had died, she wouldn't have seen her older daughter, Phelan, graduate from the New Jersey State Police Academy in June, her younger daughter, Phoebe, start high school in September or her son, William, thrive as a middle school special ed teacher or the new owner of SIR Wrestling.

She said she's learned that stress needs to be put in its place.

“I've learned to relax more and not worry so much," Livingston said. "I'm not so neurotic about things.”

The biggest message Livingston wants to purvey is that life is short.

“Live, do, say yes not no," Livingston said, "And cherish this gift of life."