{"id":112246,"date":"2025-08-04T14:41:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/?post_type=news&p=112246"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:41:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:41:27","slug":"i-nearly-died-from-broken-heart-syndrome-and-heres-why-you-could-be-at-risk-too","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/i-nearly-died-from-broken-heart-syndrome-and-heres-why-you-could-be-at-risk-too\/","title":{"rendered":"I Nearly Died From ‘Broken Heart Syndrome’ \u2014 And Here’s Why You Could Be At Risk, Too"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The<\/picture><\/div>\n
The author and her husband on their honeymoon in 2017.Courtesy of Melisse Lombard<\/p>\n

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\u201c’Are you under any significant stress?’ one of the cardiologists asked me during rounds the next morning. I stared at him blankly.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cI hope you\u2019re taking care of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s the line that\u2019s been coming at me for years now \u2013\u2013 across my texts, LinkedIn DMs and voicemails, across dinner tables and Slack messages, and haven\u2019t-seen-you-in-forever emails.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I know people mean well. I can feel their complicated mix of sympathy, pity and thank-God-it\u2019s-not-me relief.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the words roll off tongues with an ease and frequency usually reserved for basic, mindless tasks \u2013\u2013 not the truly daunting business of righting yourself after being pummeled by one (or more) of adult life\u2019s most stressful experiences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to\u00a0The Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory<\/strong><\/a> by The American Institute of Stress<\/strong><\/a>, I\u2019ve been through a whole host of those experiences\u2013 some of them a few times over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My father and maternal grandmother both died of cancer the same year, I\u2019ve moved more than a dozen times since graduating from college, and I\u2019ve lost three jobs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the past year alone, I\u2019ve gotten laid off; had my 3-year-old son diagnosed with a rare, difficult-to-control epilepsy; and tested positive for COVID on my birthday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My friends have dubbed me \u201ca warrior,\u201d \u201ca real-life superhero,\u201d and \u201cthe queen of coping.\u201d And while I don\u2019t know if those are fully-earned monikers in a country where\u00a0almost 38 million people are living below the poverty line<\/a>, I\u2019ve admittedly asked myself: Is this a normal amount of stuff to deal with?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But at the end of the day, I know I\u2019m not special. At the very least, we\u2019re all being subjected to the truly head-banging soundtrack of everything that\u2019s going wrong in this world, including deep-rooted racism, misogyny, gun violence, natural disasters, political turmoil, the aftershocks of a global pandemic, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And these chronic stressors \u2013\u2013 in addition to isolated events \u2013\u2013 are heavy contributors to any given person\u2019s cumulative stress level.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But we keep on keeping on, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After being repeatedly Whack-a-Mole-d by a few of life\u2019s most stressful events, I continued making plans where I could. I started my own business, and I scheduled an elective plastic surgery I\u2019d been considering for a long time. I was excited about the expected results after staring at a postpartum body I barely recognized for three-plus years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So, on Jan. 17, 2023, at 5:30 a.m., I arrived at the hospital for my surgery. The night before, I half-jokingly said to my mom and my husband, Pearse: \u201cIf anything happens to me, I love you!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou\u2019ll be fine!\u201d They both replied in rapid succession.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI know, I know,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m just saying it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They put me in bay number 13 for the surgery prep. I wondered aloud to Pearse over the phone if that was bad luck. We quickly chuckled about it and then it was time for me to go to the induction room.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The anesthesia team gave me some medication to calm my nerves, wheeled me into the operating room, and put me to sleep.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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About 10 minutes later, everything went sideways.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My medical team couldn\u2019t get a pulse on me \u2013\u2013 femoral, radial, carotid \u2013\u2013 nothing. They started CPR.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After a few minutes, they were able to resuscitate me, and I was emergently transferred to the cardiac catheterization lab.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When I regained consciousness later that day, I tried to take stock of my surroundings and my body.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I was still out of it from the anesthesia, but I knew this wasn\u2019t the way I had expected to wake up \u2013\u2013 with a breathing tube down my throat and a still-undetermined amount of lines coming out of my neck, arms and hands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I eventually learned I was in the cardiac intensive care unit, where I stayed for the rest of the week recovering from being brought back to life, undergoing invasive cardiac testing, and hosting a revolving door of medical professionals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAre you under any significant stress?\u201d One of the cardiologists asked me during rounds the next morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I stared at him blankly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\"The<\/picture><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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The author and her dad in the mid-1980s.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Courtesy of Melisse Lombard<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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I thought about all the days when even four anti-epileptic drugs couldn\u2019t stop our son from having close to 1,000 seizures. I thought about all the nights I\u2019d spent picking up and putting down our resurrected baby monitor, in a constant panic that every breath, every shift, every groan from his room was a seizure. I thought about his medical ketogenic diet that requires us to painstakingly weigh every morsel of food to the tenth of a gram. I thought about holding him on his side time after time as he convulsed, staring at the stopwatch on my phone, silently begging some unknown higher being to make it stop.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I thought about losing my job six months ago in the never-ending river of tech layoffs meandering through the workforce. I had vowed to myself I wouldn\u2019t lose my professional edge through parenting, the pandemic, and getting cut from yet another full-time gig. Was that happening now that I\u2019m self-employed and only working part-time? And do I even care anymore?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I thought about my dad \u2013\u2013 a former pediatric anesthesiologist \u2013\u2013 and how I wished he was there to tell me everything\u2019s going to be OK. I thought about how grief has a cruel way of forever siphoning off just a little bit of the joy that comes with every celebration-worthy event, every achievement. And I thought about how ironic it was that I\u2019d coded on the operating table after getting anesthesia \u2013\u2013 my dad\u2019s exact work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ultimately, my heart function eventually returned to normal and my medical team ruled out every cardiac condition except one: stress cardiomyopathy, also known as \u201cbroken heart syndrome<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s a complex condition in which the heart muscle is quickly, but temporarily, weakened, often as a result of intense emotional or physical stress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to my cardiologist, Dr. Anna C. O\u2019Kelly, a fellow in cardiovascular medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, my case, like many stress cardiomyopathy cases, isn\u2019t clear cut \u2013\u2013 and was likely multifactorial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt is hard to know which came first,\u201d said Dr. O\u2019Kelly. \u201cDid you develop stress cardiomyopathy from all the many life stressors you have… which placed you \u2018at risk\u2019 for the cardiac arrest? Or did your body interact poorly with the anesthesia leading to your cardiac arrest, which then caused a stress cardiomyopathy?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The role stress played in my situation is a mystery I\u2019m still very much grappling with. And a frustrating mystery at that, because while I probably had above-average stress in my life, I wasn\u2019t just letting it go unchecked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I\u2019ve been seeing a therapist regularly since my dad died, I\u2019ve test driven many stress management techniques over the years, and I\u2019m hyper-aware of what I\u2019m doing (or not doing) on a daily basis to fortify my mental health and well-being.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I now take an hour-long walk every day, I just finished a 12-week cardiac rehabilitation program, I joined a gym, I\u2019m on a beta-blocker, and I\u2019ve finally let myself spend a few nights away from home to sleep without staring at the baby monitor all night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But fitting all that in on top of day-to-day life \u2013\u2013 figuring out how to \u201ctake care of yourself\u201d today \u2013\u2013 sure feels like a bonafide burden. Like that to-do list item you can never cross off. An extra responsibility that comes at you day after day with the clich\u00e9 laundry list of yoga and just-10-minutes-of-meditation and daily exercise and weekly therapy and time with family and time with friends and time to yourself and time for the hobbies that help you feel like a person.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And if I \u2013\u2013 an upper-middle class, straight, white homeowner, with a master\u2019s degree, community support, a stable of resources, and an incredible amount of privilege \u2013\u2013 can\u2019t take care of myself in America today enough to avoid stress-induced heart failure, then how can anyone?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So, where do I go from here? Where do any of us go from here?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After all, when it comes to stress, I\u2019m certainly not alone. According to the American Psychological Association,\u00a027% of Americans<\/a>\u00a0report they are so stressed they can\u2019t function.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s huge,\u201d Dr. Lynn Bufka, associate chief for practice transformation at the American Psychological Association, and a licensed psychologist in the state of Maryland, told me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Bufka also says this type of collective, debilitating stress produces a ripple effect that seeps into just about every crevice of society.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not about one person being so stressed they can\u2019t function,\u201d she said. \u201cIt means workplaces aren\u2019t functioning as well, students aren\u2019t learning as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This type of widespread underperformance as a result of our stress only adds to our stress level, creating a vicious cycle that\u2019s very hard to break.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Plus, chronic stress \u2013\u2013 the kind that comes from things like having your basic human rights stripped away based solely on your gender identity or sexual orientation, or caring for someone with a disability \u2013\u2013 can impact almost every system in the body. And those resulting physical health issues (hello, broken heart syndrome) are, you guessed it, stressful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\"The<\/picture><\/div>\n
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The author getting prepped for surgery the morning of Jan. 17, 2023, about an hour before she coded on the operating table.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Courtesy of Melisse Lombard<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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\u201cThere is definitely a link \u2013\u2013 which we are increasingly appreciating \u2013\u2013 between our psychological and cardiovascular health,\u201d said Dr. O\u2019Kelly. \u201cThe exact mechanism is not entirely clear, though it is likely bidirectional. For example, depression is a risk [factor] for heart disease, but you can imagine ways in which heart disease is also a risk factor for depression if you aren\u2019t able to be as active, or have shortness of breath, or frequent hospital admissions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nevertheless, many of us who have the means and wherewithal, try and try again to tunnel our way through the stress wall, doing our yoga and just-10-minutes-of-meditation and daily exercise and weekly therapy and time with family and time with friends and time to ourselves and time for the hobbies that help us feel like people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But this isn\u2019t something an a\u00e7a\u00ed bowl or putting down your phone during dinner can fix. We need a lifeline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Because in the face of no federal bereavement policy, 12 weeks of unpaid family leave, average annual\u00a0child care costs coming in north of $10,000<\/a>, average bachelor\u2019s degree\u00a0loan debt clocking in at $28,400<\/a>, a health care system that will bankrupt most people at the first sign of a significant health complication, and much more, another thing is becoming abundantly clear: Even those of us with a roof over our head and food on our table are out here falling through a safety net that was already tattered and torn at best.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Bufka acknowledges that constructing an adequate safety net \u2013\u2013 in addition to pursuing the activities and boundaries that keep our individual stress levels in check \u2013\u2013 is crucial in helping Americans manage their stress levels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To be sure, that\u2019s a daunting challenge all around.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Just to lay a strong nationwide foundation, we\u2019re talking universal access to annual mental health check-ups, improved distribution of stress management resources in communities across the country, every workplace and school being equipped to take on mental health challenges, and fixing complex systemic issues \u2013\u2013 like racism, sexism and food instability \u2013\u2013 that contribute to chronic stress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Of course, there are many dedicated professionals already working to make progress in these areas. But when\u00a076% of people nationwide<\/a>\u00a0have stress-induced health problems, doesn\u2019t it seem like our leaders\u2019 urgent duty to help us move the needle? Shouldn\u2019t their main responsibility be to hold fast to the ideal of having a country full of people who are in a position to achieve contentment?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Can we really say we\u2019re the home of the American dream \u2013\u2013 the land of equal opportunity for success \u2013\u2013 if we don\u2019t address the stress elephant in the room? The simple fact is that a bunch of us are out here not functioning or literally coding on operating tables, because no matter how hard we try to chip away at our individual stressors, our country isn\u2019t meeting us halfway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I\u2019ll happily relinquish the \u201cqueen of coping\u201d crown and the \u201creal-life superhero\u201d cape in exchange for more systems and policies that take a little pressure off everyone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After all, I\u2019m just one member of an army of stressed out soldiers who I can only imagine are waving their white flags, ready to openly admit that a few weekly down dogs and sun salutations will never fully combat the stress that comes from living paycheck to paycheck, worrying your child is going to catch the next bullet, or grappling with medical trauma.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We\u2019re all warriors. We\u2019re all resilient. We can move through hard things. We can withstand the blows life deals us. We just need a little help stopping the bleeding along the way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Image by\u00a0Mohamed Hassan<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published in September 2023 and is being rerun now as part of HuffPost Personal\u2019s \u201cBest Of\u201d series.<\/em><\/p>\n

Melisse Lombard<\/strong> is a writer, editor, content professional and former journalist, now running her own editorial content production company. She lives outside Boston with her husband, Pearse, their son, and their pup. Melisse is also a co-founder of and singer in award-winning professional a cappella group,\u00a0Sound Off<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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