TV host Rachel McCord broke down in tears as she revealed that she has to undergo a risky open heart surgery after being diagnosed with a degenerative heart condition.
The 34-year-old told Daily Mail that she thought she was going ‘crazy’ before she was finally diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse.
She is set to undergo urgent surgery this month but because her condition has worsened, she has been made aware that there is a risk of heart failure.
McCord told the news outlet: “I have mitral valve prolapse and it causes regurgitation, which basically means the valves in your heart that are supposed to be one way [face the wrong direction].
“I’m having blood flow that’s going backwards, so it’s difficult to get enough oxygen and blood flow through the other areas of my body.
“I’m riding the waves of just bursting into tears, thinking about what [the surgery] is like.”
Mitral valve prolapse or MVP is a type of a heart valve disease that affects the valve between the left heart chambers. The leaflets or flaps of the mitral valve are bulging backwards like a parachute into the left upper chamber as the heart contracts.
MVP sometimes causes blood to leak backward, a condition called mitral valve regurgitation.
“It’s technically open heart surgery,” McCord expressed.
“So you know, your heart isn’t beating, it’s on a machine. They have to kind of like jump it back. And it’s scary stuff.”
The mother-of-one first noticed that something was wrong when she started struggling with fatigue, shortness of breath, and fainting.
“I have a three-and-a-half-year-old and chasing him around when I literally am panting for breath has been intense,” she shared.
“Usually I have to stop even to go up one flight of stairs, and I live in a two story house. So that’s a daily challenge. In some ways I think my house has made it easier for me to identify it because I used to notice it just when I was doing exercise. But then when I started realizing how much it affects my daily life.”
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