Working and caring for her elderly mother who has Alzheimer’s, Sharon Piggott was completely unaware that she was living with a serious heart problem.

Between October and December 2021 Sharon Piggott was feeling unwell and constantly tired but like a lot of busy women, she simply explained it away, putting it down to getting older or being stressed. Little did she realise however that she was seriously unwell with heart failure.

Originally from the UK but now living in Co Cork, 59-year-old Sharon was juggling working in a residential care home for people with intellectual disabilities while also caring for her elderly mother who has Alzheimer’s Disease. In October 2021 she began to feel unwell. She said she was constantly tired, and irritable and felt as if she was coming down with flu.

She contacted her GP a number of times only to be sent for Covid tests all of which came back negative and was prescribed antibiotics and steroids none of which seemed to help.

Just after Christmas, she felt terrible so she contacted her GP again and was asked to visit the surgery. While there after a number of tests including an ECG, she was told to go to Mallow Hospital immediately as her heart rate was sky high and she also had suspected pneumonia.

Sharon was to spend a week in hospital where she was diagnosed with heart failure and atrial fibrillation. While there it was also discovered that she had type 2 diabetes.

She said she genuinely was not aware of how sick she was until one of the doctors at the hospital told her she was minutes away from a stroke or a heart attack. “I had no symptoms. I wasn’t breathless, I wasn’t getting heart flutters.”

“When I first got my diagnosis, it took a while, obviously, for it to sink in, and when it did, I was afraid of what heart failure is. It gives you a picture that I’m going to die soon. Because of the very wording ‘failure’.”

Prior to her heart event, Sharon said she was living with overweight and had high blood pressure which was well controlled with medication. On discharge from the hospital she was put on a new regimen of medication for her heart condition and diabetes.

Since then Sharon has completely transformed her lifestyle and is feeling so much better. She started exercising despite arthritis in her knee and overhauled her diet which coupled with the diabetes medication has enabled her to lose a substantial amount of weight. She also underwent a cardioversion procedure for her atrial fibrillation which was successful.

“I think I have totally accepted that I have an underlying health issue. But you know, life goes on I can still do everything. I went back to work in May. And I can still do all the things that I was doing, but in actual fact, I now realize that I’m doing them better. I’m better in myself now. And it also brings home to me that there are other people out there who are sicker, more unwell than me, so, you know, get on with it,” Sharon said.

While a diagnosis of heart failure can be frightening it is possible to live well with the condition which is something Sharon said many people including herself were are not aware of.

Sharon who is a member of the Irish Heart Foundation’s Heart Support Network (HSN) described a “light bulb moment” when she was browsing the HSN Facebook page one day.

“A while ago, I was reading through some posts and a lady had put up that it was her 12th anniversary of being diagnosed with heart failure and I thought wow. Oh my god, 12 years. Because I think for me there was definitely a period of time where I was like, how long have I got?”

She said that to see someone else in the same position as herself alive and well 12 years after a heart failure diagnosis was a “light bulb moment.”

“This is not a life sentence of next year or the year after and that was definitely my lightbulb moment. Definitely. And in actual fact, I messaged the lady back. I cannot remember her name and said, ‘you have not only made my day but you have made things so much easier for me.”

“Heart failure doesn’t mean you’re going to die tomorrow. You can go back to living your life and doing almost everything that you did before, but maybe with a little bit of consideration, I do think that needs to be out there, because even now, if I ever meet somebody new and you say ‘I’ve got a diagnosis of heart failure’, they look at you and say ‘oh my God’.”

In January 2025, Sharon was suffering from some pain across her back and left it for a few days before going to her GP. He sent her to hospital where it was realised that Sharon’s heart was back in atrial fibrillation (an irregular heart rhythm) as a result of a viral infection she had, and it took five days in the high-dependency unit before it was stabilised.

This was evident of how Sharon feels that life can get in the way and you don’t look after yourself.

As her main carer, Sharon regularly advocates and speaks up for her 82-year-old mother but she now realises that she has to start doing it for herself too.“I have done that. I know I have, but I just didn’t do it for myself,” she said.

“Personally, I think that one of the invisible factors is that in my position, as a full-time carer for my mother I’m really good at looking for signs that she’s not well, but I am dreadful at looking at myself for that.

Sharon added that women like herself who are caring for elderly parents don’t tend to look after themselves but she was slowly learning to say no more often and put herself first for a change.

According to Sharon, women are not as aware of their heart health as they are of other issues such as breast or cervical cancer and it was important to raise awareness of cardiovascular health among women.

“If you’ve never had anybody that had any heart problems, how would you know? We’re all very familiar with cancer… and women are great now going for mammograms etc.”

She said she would advise all women to listen to their instincts if they are worried about their health and speak up for themselves if they feel they are not being listened to.

“We know our own bodies. And your gut tells you when things are not right…you have to listen to that. And if it’s a case of you are being fobbed off, you have to fight for yourself.”

As her main carer, Sharon regularly advocates and speaks up for her 82-year-old mother but she now realises that she has to start doing it for herself too.
“I have done that. I know I have, but I just didn’t do it for myself,” she said.

Sharon added that women like herself who are caring for elderly parents don’t tend to look after themselves but she was slowly learning to say no more often and put herself first for a change. She also advised women to ask for and accept help.

“If there’s somebody that can and is willing to assist, even if it’s for an hour, just to so that you can go out for a cup of coffee or go and sit in the car or the garden do it,” she said.

When speaking of the invisible impacts of heart failure, Sharon shared that there are many, including financial, physical and health.

“Financially, I was only working part-time because I was caring part-time for my mother. But I then made a decision that I had to give up work because she needed full-time care.

“But I also know that even if that had not happened, I would not have been able to go back to the job that I was doing. Although there was lots of paperwork with some sitting around with the residents, you did have to take them out a lot which was physically demanding. I wouldn’t have been on top of my game and able to do that. So, work wise, my diagnosis did make a difference.”

In 2023, Sharon needed to have a knee replacement and due to being in heart failure, the nurses needed to check her medication with the cardiac department. Although it was an additional step in the process, Sharon said: “it didn’t stop me having that operation. I just had to stop taking my blood thinners for 40 hours beforehand.

Being understood by those around you can be difficult for people living with heart failure. Not everyone I aware of the challenges it can come with.

“When living with heart failure, you don’t burden the people around you. But maybe that’s just as a woman. I rang the Irish Heart Foundation’s Nurse Support Line previously and they allayed whatever my fear was.”

When speaking about how she lives with heart failure now, Sharon shares some key supports beneficial to her.

“The hospital in Mallow is brilliant. I just can’t say enough good things about them. I have the nurse’s numbers and if there’s any little thing that I’m concerned about, I can ring them. I would say ‘this has happened, I’m a bit concerned’. There’s somebody there at the end of the phone that will be able to say, ‘oh, that’s not anything’, or, ‘yeah, come in and we’ll see you’.

I continue to use the Irish Heart Foundation’s Heart Support Network on Facebook. I read everything in the group. “that’s great because you see other things that you might be concerned about like ‘can I fly? can I go on holiday?’ and those are concerns for us.

Sharon shares that heart failure doesn’t stop you – “in a lot of ways it’s positive in that you can survive heart failure and even if you have a bit of a hiccup, like I had, things can go back to some form of normality.”