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On the December midnight when she discovered that she could not breathe, Marylou Kelly Streznewski finally had a good reason to head to the emergency room, after eighteen months of five doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Seven hours of open heart surgery later, she was in possession of a replaced mitral valve, a repaired tricuspid valve and a triple bypass. But even that did not make her an advocate for educating women about heart disease. It was reading a newsletter three months later that listed the very symptoms that had puzzled doctors for those eighteen months. Had she known, she could have insisted that they test her heart! Highlighting the necessity if educating the women of America about the dangers of heart disease as their number one killer, this dramatic memoir takes the reader inside the trauma of open heart surgery using the actual surgeon's notes, prose, letters and her own poetry.