Ceirra Zeager was 14 when she attended her first winter formal. As a bit of a wallflower, she wasn’t sure how to interpret the “butterflies” she felt when dancing with a boy for the first time. Worryingly, the girl’s stomach sensation turned out to be something far more sinister than “feelings”.
Ceirra’s father rushed her to the nearest hospital, where she had to wait hours to be seen.
During the wait, she developed another warning sign of a heart attack that targets women – “an intense burning pain” in her upper arm.
The emergency room doctor didn’t realise she was having a heart attack and thought the cause of her symptoms was anxiety which made Ceirra feel embarrassed.
Fortunately, the then 14-year-old was referred to a children’s hospital just in case.
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Heart attack symptoms in women are often different from the tell-tale signs in their male counterparts.
According to the British Heart Foundation, the most common symptoms in women include sudden chest pain, feeling sick, sweaty, light-headed or short of breath, a sudden feeling of anxiety similar to a panic attack, excessive coughing and wheezing.
Dr Nighat Arif previously told ITV’s This Morning that symptoms in women are “slightly insidious”, often presenting just as tiredness, achiness, or shoulder blade pain.
After waiting for hours, Ceirra was eventually told that she needed emergency surgery.
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Unfortunately, Ceirra’s battle didn’t end when she was 14. She began to experience symptoms, such as shortness of breath, that were pointing to one of her heart valves being “leaky” after it had been damaged by the heart attack in 2021.
In February 2021, shortly after she got married, the woman underwent open-heart surgery to repair the valve.
While the recovery proved difficult, she’s now determined to stay healthy and raise awareness.
She told the American Heart Association: “I had this crazy, tragic thing happen to me, and I want to use it for good and raise as much awareness as I can.
“I have a purpose now.”
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