As usual, I can’t help myself from scrolling through the news, despite the increasingly depressing shit happening in our country. An article caught my eye, though, being a romance writer…The headline was…”She suspected a heart attack, but was diagnosed with broken heart syndrome.” Yup, there is an actual health condition resulting from a broken heart. To be fair, it’s broader than a broken heart. The technical term is Takotsubo cardiomyopathy and it occurs as a result of a sudden and dramatic weakening of the heart muscle after a stressful event.

I thought back to an event in my life over twenty years ago…before I met my wife. I thought I was having a panic attack, but as I read the article, damn the symptoms were all too familiar. It fit. I had broken heart syndrome and didn’t even know it! Sure, I knew I had a broken heart, but I never imagined it could have such a profound effect on my actual heart. Broken heart syndrome is caused by an increase in a cardiac enzyme called troponin, in the blood. Ironically, this same enzyme is also elevated by a heart attack. However, there’s a big difference between a heart attack and broken heart syndrome. The key difference is that when a heart attack happens, there is a blockage in or more arteries. In broken heart syndrome, the echocardiogram (fancy device creating images of the heart) typically shows a characteristic ballooning of the heart muscle. Stress hormones flood the heart, creating this balloon effect. The adrenalin surge then causes the heart muscles to weaken. The good news is this condition is rare, even though I suspect many people have experienced a broken heart at least once in their life. And, it is entirely treatable and not as dangerous as a heart attack. Of course, the syndrome is most common in women over the age of 50. I wasn’t over 50, but I’ve always been an overachiever.

Since Artist Free Zone is loosely based on that time in my life, it would have been the perfect time to write about my experience with broken heart syndrome, but I didn’t. Although, I will never forget that time when the racing heart and pain occurred in the kitchen of my little chalet. It feels like only yesterday when this occurred, but it’s been well over twenty years. Perhaps now that I know what actually occurred, I can write that into a book, versus writing about panic attacks, like I’ve done in other books. Want to check out my books, feel free to click the links below. I am including links to Amazon and my Publisher so that readers have a choice! Don’t forget about The Love Demand, which goes live on March 1st…it’s a slow-burn conventional romance!