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Jenny Shipley saved my life

A hearty breakfast with former Prime oinister Jenny Shipley turned out to be the healthiest meal of Judith Ray’s life. Not being an early morning person, the busy accountant wasn’t very keen to attend the Go Red For Women event in Auckland, where Jenny was the special guest speaker. But one year and one triple bypass later, Judith says she owes her life to Jenny and that last-minute decision to go along.

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“When I see photographs of myself at the breakfast, I look like a healthy specimen and, on paper, I was really low risk,” she says. “But now I know that I was actually weeks from death at the time.” Judith is a member of Zonta, an international organisation for professional women committed to improving other women’s lives. Just before last year’s Go Red breakfasts, an email went out to New Zealand members, urging them to attend.

“I thought, ‘Um, I’m not good at breakfast,’ so I didn’t get a ticket,” admits Judith. “Then a friend told me she had a spare one, so I thought I might as well. I was so close to not going.” At the breakfast, Jenny, who survived a heart attack in 2000, urged attendees to get heart checks, no matter how well they felt. “I had a sore left arm and went to the GP several times, only to be told it was tennis elbow,” says Jenny. “oy message to the women was to be confident about asking for checks that they are entitled to and to trust their instincts.”

In the audience, Judith heard the former National Party’s leader’s words and took them to heart. “I started thinking, ‘I want to know how my heart is,’ even though I had low blood pressure and no significant family history of problems. I’d also been vegetarian for many years so never ate animal fats. I don’t smoke and rarely had alcohol.

“I knew I was unfit, though. When my husband Richard used to take the dog and me for a walk, he had to drag both of us along.” Judith saw her GP who, like Jenny’s, said she was very low risk.  However, Judith remembered Jenny urging women to go on their gut instinct and pushed to see a cardiologist. When the heart specialist checked her, there were still no warning signs, despite a treadmill test and an ECG – an electrical reading of the heart to check her heartbeat patterns.

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“The cardiologist, bless her, said, ‘Let’s go to one more level of tests because you’ve had some pain.’  “So I had an angiogram, where dye is injected into the vessels around the heart to show blockages. I was told to come back in a week for the results.”

But Judith didn’t have to wait that long. Just hours after the tests, the specialist rang and asked her to come in urgently. “She said I had severe heart disease, with one artery completely blocked and two others 70 to 80% blocked,” says Judith. “I felt shocked for a moment, then thought, ‘Well, now I know. onwards and upwards.’ “I accepted that I had to have it treated with surgery if I wanted to live.”

Judith asked if she could wait until she had been on a long-planned holiday to Turkey with Richard and finish clients’ GST returns. The cardiologist told her a story about another patient who wanted to attend her son’s wedding before having heart surgery. “She said the woman didn’t get to the wedding – she was dead,” says Judith. “So I agreed to do the operation as soon as possible, cancelled the holiday and re-scheduled the work.”

First, the cardiologist tried to break through the blockages using a stent – a fine mesh that holds arteries and veins open. But the damage was just too extensive and Judith was told a triple bypass, replacing the vessels with healthy ones from her arm, was the only option if she was to survive.

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“I was very accepting. I knew it had to happen and that was that,” says Judith.  “The night before, Richard and I went out for dinner. We didn’t know if it was going to be our last night together. “During the operation, the heart is stopped and the damaged parts replaced. There was a chance I wouldn’t wake up.”

Luckily, the three-hour procedure last July was a complete success and she recovered quickly. Since then, Judith has changed her lifestyle dramatically. “I didn’t do enough exercise so now I do cardio at the gym for an hour, four days a week, and I’ve lost a lot of weight. I’m also into relaxation, exercise and looking after myself.

“I can say no to work now and I’ve realised my time is valuable.” Two weeks after the operation, Judith wrote a letter to Jenny, telling her that she had saved the life of a stranger. “It was incredibly moving to read and made me realise how important it is to share my story and empower other women to listen to their instincts,” says Jenny, who then asked Judith to speak at this year’s Go Red For Women breakfasts. It’s a big ask for Judith, who is naturally shy, but she agreed.

“I don’t want to do it but I have to – for other women who are like I was a year ago,” she says. “If I can save one life, like Jenny did, then it’s well worth it.”

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