HEALTHRosie O'Donnell's Health Scare: TV Host 'Should've Died' After Suffering a 'Massive Heart Attack' at Age 50
Rosie O'Donnell vividly remembers the life-threatening health scare she suffered more than 10 years ago.
During a guest appearance on the Monday, September 18, episode of "The Best Podcast Ever" with co-hosts Raven-Symoné and Miranda Pearman-Maday, The Flintstones star got candid about a "massive heart attack" she endured at the age of 50.
Rosie O'Donnell sufferred a 'massive heart attack' at age 50.
"I should’ve died," admitted O'Donnell, now 61, before setting the scene of the almost-fatal day.
The famed comedian happened to be in the parking lot of a hospital picking up a friend when someone randomly asked for assistance.
The comedian detailed her health scare during a guest appearance on 'The Best Podcast Ever.'
"She said 'Rosie, will you help me up?' So I went over and I helped her up and it took a lot longer than I expected," O'Donnell explained of the stranger's request. "I got home and my arms were hurting. I thought, ‘That’s funny, it must've been from pushing her up.’ So I went about my business."
"I was in my little art studio and my son, who was only young at the time, said to me, 'Mommy you look like a ghost,'" the mom-of-five noted, though she continued to ignore her symptoms and of about her day as usual.
Rosie O'Donnell said she ignored her symptoms for almost two days before seeing a doctor.
O'Donnell did inform one of her sons, however, that she felt "so tired" and was still feeling pain in her arms.
The A League of Their Own actress proceeded to Google "women's heart attack signs" and noticed she had a "few of them" but still tried not to get too concerned, as it didn't "seem" like she was actually having one.
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"The truth of the matter is, I had this heart attack on a Monday at 10 a.m.," the former talk show star explained to the That's So Raven star and her wife of three years.
O'Donnell detailed the steps she took after the health matter happened, stating: "I get home, I can hardly walk upstairs. I take two baby aspirin, I go to sleep, I wake up and my family goes, 'You have to go to the doctor.' I waited until the next day. So it had it Monday and on Wednesday I saw a doctor."
The frightening situation caused her to advocate and inform women about female heart attack symptoms.
Still not feeling like there was an emergency, O'Donnell went to see a cardiologist instead of heading to a hospital, as she said she didn't want to take a spot in an emergency room away from someone who might have needed it more than she did.
She wasn't there for long, however, as the cardiologist informed her she was having a "massive heart attack" before O'Donnell was rushed to the ER.
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"I was like, 'Wait, wait, what?!' I couldn’t believe it," the Sleepless in Seattle actress described, still in disbelief about what she was experiencing.
"And then I came to find out that the symptoms for a woman having a heart attack are very different than the symptoms for men having heart attacks. Yet what we see on TV are always men having heart attacks," said O'Donnell — who later starred in an informational HBO special in 2015 about the signs of heart attacks in women.
"It forced me into my body and to be in touch with my body in a way that I never had been. It made me aware of feelings. I can kind of dissociate and do the world from my head and just try to use my intellect and not really pay attention to my body, but this forced me to pay attention," O'Donnell concluded.
