Three years ago on Valentine’s Day, successful travel blogger Liz Carlson was checking emails over a morning coffee when a feeling of doom suddenly washed over her.
The terrifying sensation was followed by crushing pain across her chest, neck and shoulders, which made its way into her jaw and down her arms. Struggling to breathe, the 31-one-year collapsed to the floor, dry-heaving from the agony. Liz, who was boarding 100 flights a year at the time, had suffered a minor heart attack.
“When I felt swamped by complete doom, I thought I was going to die,” says Wānaka-based Liz, 34, who has amassed over 20,000 followers thanks to her solo female travel blog Young Adventuress. “It was so weird. I later learnt it’s common with heart attacks.
“I didn’t recognise the pain and wondered if my back was cramping. After it eased, I put it down to stress, but my partner at the time said I should go to the emergency centre.”
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Virginia-born Liz spent an entire day at her local emergency centre having tests done before being sent home. That same evening, she received a call saying she needed to go to hospital immediately, since she had an abnormality with her chest.
“I didn’t think it could be my heart,” admits Liz, who had no family history of heart disease. “I spent about six hours at the hospital with big IVs strapped to my chest and when I said I wanted to leave because I’d had no answers, a doctor came in and told me I couldn’t because I’d had a minor heart attack!”
It was life-changing for the self-taught travel photographer, whose blog became one of the biggest online travel platforms in the world when she started it in 2010, while teaching English in southern Spain.
After a week’s hospital stay, which included full body and brain scans, cardiologists found the most likely cause of Liz’s heart attack was the medication she was taking for debilitating migraines, Sumatriptan.
“I’d been prescribed it to take when I felt a migraine coming on and I was getting them every other week, and a lot of it was triggered by my stress,” shares Liz, who took the medication the morning of her heart attack.
“Basically, migraines are caused by a blood vessel widening in your brain and Sumatriptan causes it to restrict. But one of the side effects is it can cause that to happen in other parts of your body, including your heart.”
As she lay in the cardiology ward three years ago, surrounded by people who were double her age and dying of heart disease, Liz’s mental health plummeted. Already suffering from anxiety and depression, and well and truly burnt out, she felt as though she’d brought it on herself.
“I was living a totally unsustainable life, with no time off and working 18 to 20-hour days while travelling,” recalls Liz, who opened designer house plant shop Node in Lyttelton in July 2020. “I was wound up like you wouldn’t believe, and would wake on planes and have panic attacks.
For years, Liz was living out of a suitcase and loving it.
“I wasn’t looking after my physical health and had bad periods of insomnia, so I’d take sleeping pills, then wake up and drink energy drinks, and just go!”
Liz was warned she could no longer take Sumatriptan and after a cardiologist told her about a private headache clinic, she got in touch and started treatment to manage a collection of stressors triggering her migraines.
“They found that my brain stem had become so inflamed over the years from stress, my posture, how I sit at the computer and not sleeping,” says Liz, who sadly lost her beloved stepfather in the US
to a fatal heart attack two months later, during lockdown.
“A big part was also being on the computer all the time. It caused me to have a big epiphany about life, and living in a way that’s a lot more sustainable and healthier.”
Liz changed her every-day habits to reduce stress, including sleeping more, exercising regularly and starting therapy. She switched migraine medication, bought a standing desk, learnt to meditate and allowed herself full days off work.
“I haven’t had a migraine since, apart from in the week leading up to my book, Houseplants And Design, coming out last year and then I had two!” laughs Liz, who opened her shop when her travel work dried up because of global lockdowns.
“I love conservation and getting into house plants was a way for me to spend less time online. It became my hobby.”
While she still travels for work, around New Zealand and abroad, Liz does fewer trips. Having recently fallen in love with polar travel and the wildlife of Antarctica, she’s now training to become a polar guide.
“Luckily, my heart and brain are fine, and the attack didn’t leave any lasting damage,” she says. “Now I always make a joke that my heart broke on Valentine’s Day!”
