“If you think something’s wrong, say something. Go to the doctor and advocate for yourself,” she said.
About five years ago, Buchanan wasn’t feeling well, and felt her heart palpitating when she was walking up the stairs. She had a feeling it wasn’t just because she was out of shape or overweight. “It was something wrong,” she said.
Buchanan, who was living in New York at the time, went to a doctor, who thought at first her symptoms were from anxiety. She went to a cardiologist and was told the day before her 25th birthday that she had a cardiovascular disease and if she didn’t have her heart valve repaired, she could go into heart failure and die.
She had heart surgery, and is now on daily medication.
These days, Buchanan works as a certified residential medication aide at an assisted living facility and lives with her boyfriend and 2-year-old daughter. She has good days and bad days, but overall, she lives a pretty normal life.
“Knock on wood, I’m doing well,” she said. “I take it one day at a time.”
Buchanan said her cardiologist thinks she might have been born with a heart defect that went unnoticed and over time weakened her heart muscles.
“A lot of people in their 20s and 30s think they’re invincible, but they’re not,” said Buchanan. “I want people to know you don’t have to be a senior to have heart disease.”
Buchanan credits her late boyfriend, Sergio, who died of hardening of the arteries in his early 20s, for making her aware of heart disease. He often complained of terrible chest pain, which his doctor thought was due to reflux, but his autopsy told a different story. Buchanan said if she hadn’t known him, she probably would have brushed off her symptoms as anxiety. “I feel like he saved my life,” she said.
For more information about heart disease in women, go to goredforwomen.org.
— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.
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