Heartbeat To Heartbeat
Women and Heart Disease Documentary
with Lucy Lawless

Press Release

I am a woman. I have heart disease. I’ve had a heart attack. I have a defibrillator. Heart disease can happen to anyone.
– Virgie Harris-Bovelle

The facts are startling. Heart disease is the number-one killer of women in the United States. Yet, many women continue to deny they are vulnerable; they still believe men are at higher risk. The half-hour public television documentary, Heartbeat to Heartbeat: Women and Heart Disease, is an urgent wake-up call that
encourages viewers to take action towards improving their cardiovascular health. The program provides useful information on risk factors, symptoms and prevention, explores the emotional impact of the disease, and reveals just how important it is for women to ask questions of their physicians and to reach out for support when they need it.

Hosted by Emmy Award-winning executive producer Helene Lerner, Heartbeat to Heartbeat will be available for broadcast on public television stations nationwide beginning February 1, 2005. (Please check local listings.) Featured in Heartbeat to Heartbeat are: Pamela Serure, a New York-based author who suffered a deep depression after undergoing triple bypass surgery because she had been accustomed to always being on the go and was forced to stop in her tracks.
Today, she gains strength from her circle of friends. As she says, their support is “the medicine I can really handle.”

Washington, D.C., psychotherapist Virgie Harris-Bovelle, who has been living with heart disease and recently lost her mother to the same illness. She knows how important it is for her daughter, Renee, to understand the intergenerational aspects of heart disease and get herself checked out. “I think we all have our way of
denying,” she says, “but I keep pushing [her].”

Kathy Kastan, MSW, LCSW, of Memphis, Tennessee, president of WomenHeart: the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease. “Physicians and patients need to have a partnership. And it doesn’t happen if the woman doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t go prepared for their doctor visits,” Kathy says. She is joined by other WomenHeart members who candidly share their own experiences and demonstrate how powerful group support can be.

Virgie’s physician, Dr. Susan Bennett, Clinical Director of the Women’s Heart Program at The George Washington University Hospital, and Dr. Barbara Alving, Acting Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, who bring viewers some of the latest information regarding women and heart disease. The two physicians see exciting developments ahead for the field of cardiology. Says Dr. Alving, “Working in all of the areas of prevention, detection of heart disease and treatment, we’re going to make great strides.”

Actor Lucy Lawless, star of the television series, Xena: Warrior Princess, who encourages women to take charge of their well-being: “Being a warrior goes into all aspects of our life, especially women’s health…. We’re all trying to do everything all the time. And I think we have to take a really strong focus on putting our health
first, in every aspect—physical health, heart health, mental, emotional health.”
As the documentary underscores, diagnosis and treatment are critical to saving—and reclaiming—one’s life.

Reflecting on her experience, Virgie says, “Sometimes I think I had to go through all of that to get to where I am today…. And it’s a good place to be.” Virgie is working on getting more exercise, maintains a healthy diet and has reduced the amount of stress in her life. “I take very good care of me,” she says. “And I laugh more—laughter’s healthy.”

Pamela describes how heart disease has changed her perspective: “Living with this new Pamela, in a sense, I found things in me that I had no idea were present…. It was as if I stepped in someone else’s shoes—my own.”

 

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