Susan Smith’s encouragement to women to embrace self-care to avoid heart problems has a soft tone.

But it is blunt, too.

“Remember, you can’t do anything if you’re dead,” she writes, quoting a nurse when she claimed she was too busy to get help.

Smith, a retired bank executive, splits her time between Seaside and a winter home in Arizona.

After a heart attack six years ago, she determined to share her story with others, forming a support group in Tucson and speaking publicly about heart disease as the No. 1 cause of death for women.

‘I have got to tell this’

In conjunction with The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, Smith earned credentials at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, as a heart health advocate. “I trained with 50 women from across the nation, all with their medical stories. They gave me more information to share.”

She is eager to describe her journey in, “My Heart Attack Saved My Life: But for What?”

“I thought, if I had a book I could reach lots more people,” she said. “I wanted to tell the story, so that they would know what happened to me could happen to them, with every single gory detail, as frightening as it is.”

Smith wrote a book in fifth grade and produced a neighborhood newspaper at age 10, later studying journalism at Kansas State University. Her adult hobby as a magazine writer, plus enthusiasm for journaling, paved her way into publishing.

“I really do enjoy storytelling,” said Smith, who has taught other writers.

‘Vulnerable’

The “what” in the book’s title is exhorting women to examine their lifestyles to avoid the “too busy” path that brought her to a heart attack at age 70. “It was a bad thing and I wanted to turn it into something good,” she said.

Smith’s book is divided into two parts, sharing her story, then turning attention to self-care tips. Her unplanned pregnancy and unsuccessful first marriage are the first of several missteps, followed by decades as a single woman in the stressful corporate banking world. She also worked as a jewelry designer and in interior design.

“There are parts of me in my life that are not as pretty as they can have been,” she laughed. “By being vulnerable, I think people can relate. Most people that read it appreciate the vulnerability — I can’t make this stuff up!”

One key is minimizing burnout common in caregivers and those wired to please other people. “I had a really hard time giving up what I liked to do. I had to learn to say ‘no.’ That was a big part of it.”

She describes heart attack symptoms, which may be different in women, and are often ignored.

Next up

Smith remarried about 20 years ago to Tomas, whose U.S. Coast Guard service took him to Astoria, installing a desire to return to the North Coast in his retirement years. They enjoy living in Seaside and being in the summer congregation at Pioneer Presbyterian Church in Warrenton.

She is content, pacing herself when scheduling public speaking engagements and blogging further details including heart attack symptoms on her website.  While her next literary project will be a family history, she has written a second book about gratitude titled “Follow Your Heart.”

“My heart attack didn’t kill me. It saved my life,” she said. “I want to be an inspiration to other women — and men.”

New book

New book

“My Heart Attack Saved My Life: But for What?” by Susan Smith

$14.95 — Self-published — 178 pp

www.susansmithheart.com