Success Stories: Susan Onori

At Sherman Hospital, we pride ourselves on educating the community and providing resources to help combat heart disease.

We offer a wide array of classes, lectures, screenings and support groups that focus on preventing heart disease, promoting healthy lifestyles and offering resources for those who have been diagnosed with heart disease.

Recent programs include "Women and Heart Disease: Our Symptoms Are Different," "Live Longer, Live Healthier: Lower Your Cholesterol," and "Eating the Mediterranean Way."

For more information on community wellness classes, please call (800) 397-9000.

Susan Onori's story is, unfortunately, not uncommon. She jokes that for years, she sampled all of the fast food restaurant menus and considered her only exercise program to be "the many trips I made from the TV to the fridge."

But after Susan, 48, suffered a stroke -- and learned that her heart had been significantly damaged by a previous heart attack -- she knew it was time to get serious about her health.

While the stroke was certainly life-altering, Susan claims that it was the time she spent at Sherman's Cardiac Rehab that turned this into a positive event. With the help of Sherman Health's expert Cardiac Rehab staff, she learned to make health a priority and she safely began an exercise regimen under the staff's guidance.

They helped move her from a place of fear to a place of hope, and taught Susan that she was capable of more than she had ever imagined.

How much more? Three years after her stroke, Susan ran a marathon to benefit the American Stroke Association. Susan continues to make running and healthy eating a part of her daily life.