Heart awareness week a reminder to stay on top of risk factors – Okanagan [Video]

Jennifer Monaghan was 43 years old when she suffered a stroke.

“I didn’t have any of the traditional risk factors,” Monaghan told Global News.

While the Kelowna woman says she’s managing her condition with medication, she does have some long-term lingering effects more than a decade later.

“My right arm and my right leg are not as coordinated or as strong as they used to be,” said Monaghan, adding she also has some difficulties with memory and cognitive impairment.

Despite the problems, Monaghan, a former lawyer before her stroke, says she feels lucky.

“When the doctors were trying to find out why I had a stroke, they discovered I also had cardiomyopathy,” she said.

Cardiomyopathy affects the heart’s ability to pump blood and is one of the causes of heart failure.

“Heart failure kind of encapsulates a disease process in which there can be a lot of different reasons why …