WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — February is American Heart Month, the perfect time to take a look at your own heart health.
It's a time where doctors across the country encourage everyone to see their healthcare provider.
Heart disease is the number one killer of Americans, more than all types of cancers combined, according to the American Heart Association.
Linda Hanselman said she knows firsthand just how scary a heart attack can be.
"I had a birthday on Tuesday and a heart attack on Saturday," she said.
Last January, she called her next door neighbor thinking she was having a panic attack.
"She said, 'Do you think you should go to a hospital?' I said, 'Yes.'"
She discovered it was, in fact, a heart attack.
Hanselman had open heart surgery that same day.
"I could not believe it. I know there's history of heart issues in my family, but I never thought it would be me."
A year later, she is riding the bikes at Houston Healthcare's Cardiac Rehab Center.
Rachel Morris, who oversees the center, said it's all about taking care of yourself.
"It’s a lot of lifestyle factors. Sometimes we are genetically predisposed to some things, and that’s what God gave us," she said.
But it's also about our diets.
"We gotta watch our salty foods and sometimes our sugar because diabetes is a big thing we're seeing with cardiovascular disease -- they kind of go hand-in-hand," said Morris.
According to the American Heart Association, 58 percent of Americans admit to putting little to no effort in improving their heart health.
She said they recommend 150 minutes of exercise a week, and their job is to monitor the patients who are recovering from heart attacks, transplants and heart failures.
Morris said knowing the signs of a heart attack and calling 911 when you need to are so important.
"The big ones are chest pain, any kind of pain radiating down your arm, jaw pain, indigestion. Some people just have a lot of shortness of breath, fainting sometimes, and they’ll be sweaty."
She said men and women can show signs or heart attacks and heart disease differently.
"No one really plans on having any kind of heart event. It's a traumatic event, so just getting that piece of mind, coming here and getting back into their routine and trying to figure out what their new normal is."
Morris encourages everyone to be heart healthy year round, not just in February.
Hanselman said she thanks God that she is still here to be able to get back on that treadmill.
She said she told God if she had an opportunity to share her story to help someone else, she would.
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