WHITEHALL TWP, Pa. — It was during the recent Memorial Day holiday when Jessica Pelletier’s life unexpectedly changed.
“Memorial Day night I was watching TV with my husband when I began experiencing chest pain,” Pelletier said Monday.
“I assumed it was possibly air or just some indigestion but it didn’t go away. We went to bed around 11 p.m. and at 12:45 a.m. I was woken out of my sleep with that same intense pain, which continued to roll in and out in a wavelike pattern until about 4:15 in the morning.”
Pelletier — the owner of the popular Wicked Sweet bake shop at 3010 S. Second St. in Whitehall — didn’t know it at the time, but she was having a heart attack.
It was the first of two she would suffer.
“Around 6 a.m. I got up with my family, got my daughter ready, got her to day care. I went to Giant to pick up my grocery order and headed to the bakery to do my normal Tuesday prep.”
It was then that Pelletier told a friend who helps out in the shop about her chest pain the night before.
“I told her about my night and she immediately took me to the hospital.”
Doctors ran tests and found elevated heart enzymes, which indicated stress to the heart.
“I was admitted and given tons of medicine to keep me comfortable while they continued monitoring me. I slept through the night Tuesday, and early Wednesday morning I began experiencing the same chest pain that I had at home the night before," Pelletier said. "When they gave me an EKG they could see that I was having another heart attack.”
Surgery originally scheduled for Wednesday afternoon was pushed up and Pelletier said she needed three stents to stabilize an artery.
Wicked Sweet now will be closed at least a month as Pelletier recovers from what she said doctors called “broken heart disease” brought on by stress.
‘I am going to be okay’
“So many of you walk through my doors and have become friends and people that I genuinely care about,” Pelletier said in a Facebook post to her customers.
“What’s important to note is I AM GOING TO BE OKAY!”
But for now, she will shutter her small business for at least a month as she undergoes cardiac rehab to help repair damage to her heart muscles.
She said she’s focused on taking time and adjusting to a new normal before figuring out what direction she plans to take the business once she’s ready to come back.
“Anyone with an order scheduled for July and beyond is still secure in my books at this time. If this changes, be certain that I will reach out with plenty of notice,” she said in the post.
“My heart is still beating, and soon enough this will be no more than a vivid reminder to take care of me.”
‘I’m trying not to stress’
With her small business now closed, Pelletier said her biggest fear “is that people are gonna fall in love with other bakeries and when I come back, my business won’t be the same.”
But she’s also speaking out to urge her fellow small business owners and others “to make sure that your days are actual days off. To be resting, to be refilling your cup, to be focusing on yourself.
“When you own a business, you quickly fall into the superhero mentality of thinking you can do it all, and some days it does seem easy to do it all,” she said. “That’s obviously what landed me here.”
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t be afraid to put your health, physically or mentally, first. If your customers can’t respect that and understand, they weren’t the kind of customers you wanted in the long run.”
She also wants women to know the signs of a heart attack, especially because she had no symptoms before her chest pain started.
“We generally hear about male heart attacks,” she said. “The symptoms are drastically different.”
A graphic shared with her Facebook post outlined dizziness or lightheadedness, pale or clammy skin, unusual fatigue, pain in one or both arms, the upper back, neck, jaw or stomach as symptoms, along with shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
“I know how important it is for me to be resting,” Pelletier said.
“But I also know how taking a month off can impact a small business such as mine. I’m trying my best not to stress it.”
