Ignoring Heart Warnings at 22 Led to Fainting Spells

At twenty-two, sitting in graduate school at Emory University to study medicine, I foolishly decided to ignore my own body signals. My heart was already screaming for attention through palpitations, chest pain, and dizzy spells that I simply chalked up to stress or dismissed as minor annoyances. It feels wrong to bury your head in the sand about a beating organ, yet that is exactly what I did.

I ran an EKG on myself and saw abnormal results, though I had fainted numerous times during my teens. Even simple tasks like shopping at a mall left me breathless, while running a mile made my entire body feel as though it filed a formal complaint against itself. I knew enough about cardiology to recognize these were not normal symptoms. Still, at twenty-two, I convinced myself that nothing terrible could ever happen to me. So I ignored the warning signs until they became impossible to miss.

Denial acts as a handy coping mechanism when we cannot make sense of what is happening inside us. We often label it weakness or irresponsibility, but sometimes it is just the mind saying, 'I can't deal with this today. Maybe tomorrow.' My tomorrow finally arrived nearly ten years later, and it came almost too late.

I was riding the Metro in Washington, DC, to meet a guy after work when my heart suddenly went ka-boom. It did not happen once or twice but consistently pounded for about twenty minutes. Panic seized me because I knew I had pushed aside those red flags far too long. That moment was the scariest thing I had ever experienced.

I shook with fear, sweated profusely, turned pale, and could not breathe. I bent over to catch my breath before crawling under the seat to escape commuters who tried to help me. My heart pounded louder than a bass drum. Terrified, I skipped my date and ran straight to the nearest emergency room.

At first, no one seemed convinced that anything was seriously wrong. They suggested I was perhaps overworked or having a panic attack, telling me it might all be in my head. But an EKG revealed the harsh truth: I had suffered a heart attack. The next week the real diagnosis came down to me.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a genetic condition where the heart muscle becomes abnormally thick. This causes irregular heartbeats, unannounced fainting spells, and thumps that feel like a horse kicking the inside of your chest. Suddenly, the future I assumed was mine became nothing more than a question mark. Overnight, despite wearing three-inch heels and pencil-tight skirts, I was labeled a heart patient.

The cardiologist told me my life expectancy would be shortened. 'How long do I have?' I asked. He did not know. No one knew. At that time, the condition was considered terminal and permanent with no room for negotiation. I would need regular check-ups, medications, and possibly surgery. My condition might worsen or it might stay stable. Having children became a risky proposition.

One thing he said took hold immediately: 'This may cause you more problems psychological than physical.' As a child, Mayes became short of breath easily and could barely run a mile. 'I had fainted a lot in my teens,' says Mayes. 'I became short of breath shopping at the mall.' Those words were accurate because he was right.

For nearly twenty years, I kept my heart disease largely to myself. Telling others made it feel more real than I could handle, so I suffered alone. There were no patient support groups available back then. There was certainly no Instagram community of women sharing their diagnoses and comparing notes like there is today.

No hashtag existed for finding heart sisters at 2 a.m. when panic took hold and you were convinced something terribly wrong had happened. Mostly, there was silence. That quiet bred anxiety, depression, and the crushing feeling of being an outcast or damaged goods. You felt bereft because knowing what you once hoped to become in life was no longer on the table.

For years, I let my diagnosis occupy far too much room inside me. Every flight of stairs seemed like a mountain. Every skipped heartbeat interrupted my thoughts. Every bout of breathlessness turned into a negotiation between my rational brain and the frightened woman living inside my chest.

Approximately 160 million Americans live with at least one chronic health condition, and most of those cases are invisible. I am one of them. The strange reality is that you can be sick and look perfectly well at the same time. I could go to work. I traveled. I partied with friends. I appeared completely healthy on the surface.

And yet, inside my head, a storm raged. Is my heart acting up? Did I miss my meds? Should I be worried? Can anyone tell I'm not right?

Eventually, I realized that living with a chronic disease wasn't going to be a single dramatic battle where you either win or lose. It wasn't a one-night stand. It was going to be a long-term relationship. This condition became part of me that needed my attention, handled with compassion and care, not ignored with frustration and regret. I had to make friends with my heart.

And, like many long-term relationships, it required boundaries. It required weathering ups and downs that came in the form of good days, bad days, taking turns yet unannounced. The only way to keep your wits about yourself is to learn as much as you can about your body's quirks, missteps, weird behaviors, and discern what is simply you being you versus you being on the brink of something that needs medical attention.

It takes diligence and quashing the urge to throw a pity party. I learned the hard way that to keep my physical health in working order, I had to get a grip on my emotional and mental health. That's the lesson your doctor never tells you: your emotional health is equally important in determining your physical health. Your attitude, lens on life, temperament, and curiosity will help you manage our confusing and irrational health system and keep you on track.

No one tells you that the glue to feeling like you're keeping it together is your ability to manage your emotions. But I will tell them now.

Over the years, I moved, changed jobs, saw 20 different cardiologists, and accumulated enough medical records to fill a small filing cabinet. Electronic medical records have improved enormously, but healthcare isn't one giant, beautifully synchronized computer system in which every clinician knows everything that has ever happened to you.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped measuring my life against the life I thought I would have. I stopped expecting more of myself than could possibly be expected. That may have been the biggest turning point of all because I saw possibilities to live fully instead of playing it small. I had spent years thinking about what heart disease might keep me from doing. As I hit middle age and lived much longer than expected, I became more interested in what was still possible.

And there were plenty.

I took up Pilates. I traveled. I fell in love with people and places. I built a career around health policy and walked through the halls of Congress advocating for better healthcare.

In other words, I lived. Not despite having heart disease. I lived with it. For a long time, I thought it meant that I was throwing in the towel. Now I understand it differently. Acceptance isn't saying: 'This is all my life will ever be.' It is saying: 'This is part of my life.

Doctors seldom ask about your mental well-being or how you're handling your emotions." This statement cuts to the heart of a growing problem. You might leave an appointment wondering what happens next with the rest of your recovery plan.

But here is the reality: physicians need to check in on your feelings just as much as they monitor your vitals. If they don't bring it up, you have every right to add it to the conversation yourself. Do not stay silent when your mind feels overwhelmed while your body heals.

Hopefully, you'll find your mind and body heal together in that same space. That is the only way forward for a complete recovery. The book More Person Than Patient by Gwen Mayes addresses this exact issue. It was published by Mayo Clinic Press on November 3.