Actress Susan Lucci is opening up about a recent health scare that could have led to a heart attack, sharing her story in an effort to spread awareness.
During an appearance on Good Morning America on Wednesday, the All My Children star revealed that in October, she felt discomfort in her chest twice, and a third time, she felt it while she was shopping.
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“I was actually in a boutique,” she recalled. “And I suddenly felt what I had heard someone on a TV interview years ago, a woman says that she, leading up to a heart attack, had felt like an elephant was pressing on her chest.”
The store manager drove Lucci to the hospital, where she discovered she had a 90 percent blockage in the main artery leading to her heart and a 70 percent in a branch artery. The blockages required stents, which were put in that evening.
“I didn’t realize how serious it was until I asked to go home and come back the next day for the procedure and my doctor said ‘You’re not leaving,” Lucci told PEOPLE. “You can have a heart attack at any time.’”
According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the number one killer of women today, though Lucci noted that had she been at home, she would have likely brushed her symptoms off.
“I thank goodness that I was not home because had I been home,” Lucci said. “I probably would’ve said, ‘Oh, I just need to lay down. I’ll have some water…then, I’ll feel fine.’”
The 72-year-old added that the scare “shook [her] up” since she eats healthy and exercises 6-7 times per week.
“It was genetics for me and stress,” she explained. “I asked the doctor, ‘How’s my heart? How’s my actual heart?’ And he said, ‘Your heart is like the heart of a 20-year-old.’ And he said it to me three times, so I believe him.”
While the actress’ mother, Jeanette, is 101 years old, her father, Victor, suffered a heart attack in his late forties.
“My father had calcium build up in his arteries,” Lucci said. “It’s my DNA.”
Lucci is a volunteer spokesperson for American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women campaign and shared that she wants to encourage others, especially women, not to ignore any symptoms.
“As women, we put ourselves on the back burner sometimes,” she said. But if your body is telling you something, you need to pay attention. Put yourself on your to-do list.”
“I want to do some good with what I’ve been through,” she added. “If I can help in any real way, I want to. Everyone’s symptoms are different but I felt compelled to share mine. Even if it’s one person I help, that’s someone’s life.”
Photo Credit: Getty / Sean Zanni
