The perfect blend of fierce and fearless, 47-year old Pamela Thomas knows the importance of support to help women with heart disease thrive.
A woman of strength, Pamela’s a proud heart survivor, advocate, and creator of the Facebook Blog Project Heart Talk, which inspires women to engage in living a heart healthy and wellness lifestyle. Her message? “Fall in love with your heart.”
Pamela is motivated to serve as a volunteer for non-profit organizations, events, and grassroots activities that support heart health. She’s a former Support Network Leader for WomenHeart Atlanta NE, where she provided peer-to-peer, patient support for women living with heart disease. She continues to volunteer diligently for WomenHeart.
Diagnosed with congenital heart disease (cardiomegaly) at birth, Pamela still managed to live a very active life. In 2008, along with congestive heart failure, Pamela was diagnosed with severe mitral and tricuspid regurgitation, an atrial septal defect, a damaged left ventricle, and chronic atrial fibrillation. Her severe diagnosis was repaired through several heart surgeries including two robotic-assisted heart surgeries which ultimately saved her heart and life. Her life-saving experience revealed her life passion—to serve as a heart health motivator and educator of women.
This year and in 2017, Pamela was invited to participate in the Burlington #KnockOutHeartDisease Campaign. Since then, she has had numerous opportunities to speak to women in her professional role. Pamela would like people to know that heart disease is still the number 1 killer of women, since too many women don’t know their risk or the symptoms of heart disease.
This Heart Month, Pamela and WomenHeart encourage you to talk to your girlfriends about heart disease and how to take control of your heart health.