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Rosie O'Donnell Had Heart Attack, Uses Verse To Spread News And Message

Rosie O'Donnell in July 2011.
Frederick M. Brown
/
Getty Images
Rosie O'Donnell in July 2011.

Rosie O'Donnell has chosen an unusual way to tell her fans that she suffered a heart attack last week:

In verse.

On her blog.

And she's using the experience to urge other women to "listen to the voice inside" and call 911 if they suffer the symptoms she did — which she tried to ignore for a day.

It seems that last Tuesday (Aug. 14), the 50-year-old comedian/actress/talk show host helped a heavy woman get out of her car. She writes that:

"it was not easy

"but together we did it

"she was up and on her way

"with gratitude

"a few hours later my body hurt

" i had an ache in my chest

"both my arms were sore

"everything felt bruised"

Later, she felt "nauseous ... clammy ... very hot. ... i threw up."

But it wasn't until the next day that she went to a doctor — who "did an EKG and sent me to the hospital ... where a stent was put in."

According to O'Donnell, her left anterior descending artery was "99% blocked."

She ends her post with this message for women:

"know the symptoms ladies

"listen to the voice inside

"the one we all so easily ignore

"CALL 911

"save urself"

In February, our colleague Scott Hensley wrote on the Shots blog about how "In Women, Heart Attacks Often Strike Without Chest Pain."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
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