Sally Bee owes recovery from three heart attacks to making right choices for her wellbeing

Sally has survived three heart attacks (Rhian Ap Gruffydd)

SALLY BEE is as busy as her surname suggests.

A regular on ITV’s Lorraine show, where her healthy eating sections are hugely popular, she’s also a best-selling author, Ambassador for Heart Research UK and campaigner for basic cookery to be taught in schools.

And if that wasn’t enough, Sally’s just opened Nutrilicious, her healthy eating restaurant at Hoar Cross Hall Spa Hotel in Staffordshire.

All of which is remarkable enough, but made even more impressive by the fact Sally suffered three heart attacks in the space of a week in 2003 and wasn’t expected to survive.

“I was 36, had three children under the age of five and was just a busy working mum when these heart attacks came completely out of the blue,” says Sally.

“It turned out I had a very rare heart condition we didn’t know about called spontaneous coronary artery dissection — SCAD — and my main left artery had basically fallen apart.

“Life as I knew it was turned upside down completely and, though I’ve managed to turn it into a good thing, there were very dark days because I had no positive prognosis.

“The only thing they could have done was a heart transplant, but they don’t do emergency transplants so they called my husband in and told him to say goodbye.

“I’d just finished breastfeeding my youngest, so there’d been this surge of hormones which can affect you on a real cellular level.

“They affect the collagen levels in your blood vessels, and I obviously had a weakness in one of those.

“Having such a young family was uppermost in my mind because I was afraid of the obvious.

“But I also lost all my energy — my get-up-and-go got up and went — and that meant I wasn’t able to be the mum I had been and wanted to be, which was very hands-on.

“I was used to taking care of the children myself and then people had to step in and help, but we survived it, and it was 13 years ago this summer it happened.”

Sally’s was such a rare condition that no-one could put her in touch with a fellow survivor to talk to.

“There are a few now and there’s more awareness of SCAD and what it’s capable of doing to you,” she says.

“I suffered massive damage which I now live with.

“My heart was in moderate failure for about five or six years afterwards, and the doctors thought I’d never get better.

“In the past, they’d only ever seen a heart with the amount of damage I had in someone with a progressive heart disease towards the end of life.

“Mine isn’t that,” she adds.

“It’s more like my heart suffered a trauma, an accident, and part of it gave way and that’s what caused the damage.

“I’ve actually been able to build strength on top of the damage and compensate for the areas that were damaged.

“The doctors didn’t think that was possible.

“Now, my output is that of a normal person my age, which is amazing considering the damage I have.

“They think I probably had heart attacks in my late teens and 20s, too, because I’d suffered that pain before, but that my heart basically ‘bypassed’ itself.

“What happens is when part of the artery is blocked, or in my case falls apart, the blood finds another way through.

“It’s the same when you have a varicose vein removed from your leg — the blood doesn’t just stop, it finds another route through and that route becomes stronger over time.

“So I had this amazing network of all these little vessels that kept me alive when it happened, and because I was fit and well beforehand it supported me enough to keep me alive — which is real testament to living a healthy lifestyle.

“None of us knows what’s around the corner, so when that bus does come hurtling straight at you, if you’ve taken care of yourself you’re much more likely to survive and recover well.”

Nothing can be done surgically to help Sally, who says: “I’m medically managed, on a very heavy drug regime, and there can be knock-on effects on your liver, kidneys, joints but I’m completely asymptomatic.

“I eat right, I sleep right, I rest right and listen to my body.”

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