“All my dreams, confidence, creativity, and healthy living could not protect me from where my heart was about to take me . . . which was not, as I’d often hoped, to the love of my life or all my dreams fulfilled, but to a 99 percent blockage of my arteries and triple bypass surgery. I had heart disease.” —from Take It to Heart


Nobody lived a healthier or more active life. She was the juicing guru to the stars. She exercised and ate right. But at forty-seven Pamela Serure, exhausted, in pain, and with diagnoses ranging from menopause to anxiety, discovered that she had heart disease. Lifestyle and diet couldn’t correct what her genes had determined. With two days to get her affairs in order, Pamela prepared for triple bypass surgery to correct three almost completely clogged arteries.

What the doctors missed and what most women don’t seem to know is that heart disease is the number-one killer of American women. It kills more women than all the cancers combined. Traditional markers of heart disease, such as high cholesterol, may not apply to women. As a result, doctors consistently misdiagnose female patients with anxiety, digestive distress, or symptoms of menopause.

Blindsided by her sudden bypass surgery, Pamela Serure turned her life-altering experience into a personal mission to help educate other women about this dangerous and far-reaching disease. In this book Pamela opens the door to her recovery process and tells readers what the doctors won’t. She has found experts to offer advice so that readers will know exactly what to look for and what tests to demand. Women share stories of how they persisted in having the cardiac tests run that saved their lives and others share stories of women they lost because of a missed diagnosis. Comforting, funny, and soulful, this is the book that will empower women to take charge of their heart health. As Pamela says, “These days heart disease has all my attention, as it should have yours.”