Bridging the gap
if you’ve just had a life-threatening heart attack, have been told by your doctor that your largest heart artery is 99% blocked and it’s called ‘the widow-maker’, then left by your doctor without any further information, wondering if you are going to die…
if you have been told that you need open heart surgery, and replacement of your aortic valve with a mechanical one, and are terrified with the thought of having someone putting their hands INSIDE your chest…
if you wake up some nights with your heart fluttering like a caged bird or pounding so hard and fast that it feels like it is breaking out of your chest…
if you have survived a cardiac arrest, where your heart has stopped, and you are scared out of your mind about when it is going to happen again, or whether you are going to live another week, month or year…
You are not alone
YOU HAVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE
Why Heartbeats?
“It’s a strange, scary experience when you are breathing but your lungs don’t seem to be working, and it feels like your chest has a tight metal band around it, stopping it moving up and down. I felt like a truck had hit me, leaving me alive and conscious, but beaten up, and exhausted. I was fit, but had to sit down on the low, stone wall along my driveway.”
That was my first heart attack. I had a second one in hospital before getting my stent.
Coming out of hospital ten days later, I could find no-one who could answer all my questions, even after reaching out to Heart Foundation, looking for people who understood what I had gone through. There was no support for heart patients and heart event survivors, anywhere.
That was the moment when Heartbeats was born . . . as a real, heart patient-to-heart patient support group, to talk about your experience, take your hand, and share the journey of mutual recovery, together.
Trent Lash, Founder of Heartbeats and heart event survivor.
How we can help you
We can help you through sharing knowledge, personal experience and management of your heart condition, as well as referrals to local, professional healthcare resources.
Get support
Educate
Events
Resources
Monthly Heartbeats Support Meetings Sunnynook & Central
Central City Last Thursday of every month Mt Albert...
Monthly Heartbeats Support Meetings Orewa & Henderson
Orewa First Tuesday of every month Hibiscus Coast...
I have worked with a number of people that have attended the Heartbeats group and they have really benefited from the support provided
A big thanks for the online group meeting with the cardiologist guest speaker. It was very informative. Our friends were very happy to have been able to join in.
Keep up the good work. You are doing a very valuable job.
Prior to Heartbeats, there was no support for heart survivors in our area. I am very thankful for having found this community group.
The monthly meetings are extremely beneficial and informative, We have much-needed support, personally on any issues that may arise outside of these meetings.
As a stranger to any health issues, the whole journey has been somewhat daunting, with unknowns and scary stuff.
I am so pleased that Heartbeats are here as a driving force: organizing, facilitating and helping guide us, so that we can all become more educated and aware of the things that are important: it really does make a difference.
At Heartbeats I found people who had faced similar challenges, heard how they surmounted them, and they helped me gain the confidence needed to seek help rather than accept how things were. Joining Heartbeats turned things around for me, and it is great to be enjoying life again
I think we all have learned for ourselves, or to help others. Having a rehab group for us all is fabulous. It is this aspect of ‘post heart/hospital’ which I was desperate to find and previously had no luck.
I have worked with a number of people that have attended the Heartbeats group and they have really benefited from the support provided
A big thanks for the online group meeting with the cardiologist guest speaker. It was very informative. Our friends were very happy to have been able to join in.
Keep up the good work. You are doing a very valuable job.
Prior to Heartbeats, there was no support for heart survivors in our area. I am very thankful for having found this community group.
The monthly meetings are extremely beneficial and informative, We have much-needed support, personally on any issues that may arise outside of these meetings.
As a stranger to any health issues, the whole journey has been somewhat daunting, with unknowns and scary stuff.
I am so pleased that Heartbeats are here as a driving force: organizing, facilitating and helping guide us, so that we can all become more educated and aware of the things that are important: it really does make a difference.
At Heartbeats I found people who had faced similar challenges, heard how they surmounted them, and they helped me gain the confidence needed to seek help rather than accept how things were. Joining Heartbeats turned things around for me, and it is great to be enjoying life again
I think we all have learned for ourselves, or to help others. Having a rehab group for us all is fabulous. It is this aspect of ‘post heart/hospital’ which I was desperate to find and previously had no luck.