Meet Sally Bee
First and foremost I am a wife and mother. I am also a home cook, food writer, campaigner, heart health ambassador and TV presenter.
My story was pretty much like everyone else’s for a while. But halfway through a children’s party in 2004, I had a massive heart attack. At the time I thought it was indigestion (!), but then again, so did the local hospital. I was to have two more heart attacks within a week. After the third one, my husband was advised to say his goodbyes, the doctors did not expect me to survive the night.
As I fought for every second of life left, the minutes turned to hours and the hours to days and I dared to ask the doctors if then thought I could live as long as ten years.
“Sally, if you can survive ten years after this, you can live forever”.
This year is ten years since my heart attacks. As I walked the slow journey of recovery and readjustment, the conclusion to my health problems were gradually coming to light. It turned out I had a rare heart condition that should have killed me.
What saved my life, was that prior to being ill, I had eaten a healthy diet. Not because I thought my health needed looking after at that young age, but because if I didn’t, I piled on the pounds.
Eating a healthy diet had meant that my body was infact ‘well enough’ to take such a huge catastrophe. How unbelievably lucky I had been. Since then I have been fascinated to learn about how I can continue to improve on this. I’ve learnt a lot. And I want to share it with you.