Marine, 36

“It’s January 2024. A month after giving birth, I wake up with a start. My heart is racing—it’s beating at over 180 beats per minute. This isn’t just a simple flutter; I feel like I’m about to pass out…

I’m short of breath, exhausted, and have a persistent cough. But, like many new moms and as my doctor says, I might just still be reeling from the pregnancy.

But I feel like something is really wrong. After spending the weekend in bed, without the strength to get up or hold my son, my partner decides to call 911.

I arrive at the ER at 7 p.m. and have a CT scan. The scan reveals fluid in my lungs. I’m transferred to another hospital around 11 p.m., 40 minutes from my home.

I make the trip on oxygen. I feel like I can’t get enough air, like I’m suffocating. I was settled into a room, where I was left to spend the night on oxygen.

The next morning, after an ultrasound, the doctor told me I had suspected postpartum cardiomyopathy. “Your condition is critical; your ejection fraction is 10%. You’re going to be transferred immediately to a Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU). We don’t have the necessary equipment here in case something happens to you.”

I will always remember that sentence…

I was transferred to the CCU, two and a half hours from my home, hooked up to machines, monitored, on a central line, and forbidden to get out of bed. The doctors mentioned a transplant but hoped the treatment would work.

Very quickly, I’m put on treatment. I’m given dobutamine via a central line. It supports my heart, like a temporary engine tasked with taking over. I respond well to the treatment, and the transplant is ruled out. I stay there for three weeks,

Time stands still there; it feels so long, surrounded by machines and doctors coming and going. The numbers on a screen have become the center of my existence. A beep sounds constantly in my room. I don’t really understand what’s happening; I’m very weak, and the treatment I’m receiving to stop breastfeeding is making me sick.

I have only one thought in my mind: to get my son, my baby, back as soon as possible! I’m so afraid he’ll forget me, that he’ll think his mom abandoned him. My sister-in-law is taking care of him, since my partner is staying with me during these three weeks.

We’re lucky to have family living near the hospital; my partner can stay with them and come every day to support me.

Once I’m out of the ICU, I’ll go to cardiac rehab. Four more weeks of work, measured effort, slow but steady progress. But also joy, because I can do outpatient treatment. I can go home in the evening and enjoy time with my baby—exhausted, of course, but I’m with him.

March 2024, I finally go home. But freedom comes at a price… I have to wear a cardiac vest, a LifeVest, 23 hours a day for three months. My ejection fraction only rose to 25% during my stay in the cardiac intensive care unit. It’s like a constant reminder of my fragility, of what I’ve just been through, and of that constant fear that my heart will stop again. After hearing the words “sudden death”…

The months pass. My ejection fraction rises to 37%. I can finally take off my LifeVest. What a relief! I’ll finally be able to resume a so-called normal life.

Alas, a few months later, in June–July 2024, new episodes of tachycardia appear.

After numerous tests to determine the type of tachycardia, I must undergo radiofrequency ablation, scheduled for December 31, 2024. A date that feels as though I’ve chosen to close this difficult year by confronting one of the last lingering effects this disease has caused me.

What my heart and I went through really took a toll on me, both physically and psychologically. I was on medical leave for a year and a half; I had to relearn how to live to help my heart regain its strength. I also had to learn to distance myself from stressful situations to avoid a relapse.

Today, nearly two years later, my heart is doing better; my ejection fraction is 50%. I’m not “cured” yet, but my condition remains stable—that’s the important thing. I may never regain an ejection fraction of 60%, given the damage my heart has sustained. I’m on lifelong medication and have a cardiology check-up once a year.

But I also have emotional scars that will likely never heal. I experienced a sudden separation from my son when he was just one month old. Being far from him felt like being torn apart. Stopping breastfeeding completely also left a wound.

How can I understand that my heart—so young, so full of life, in the midst of motherhood—could fail like this? How can I accept that the body that had just given life suddenly finds itself in danger? To the point of losing its own?

But I held on. Amid the machines, the treatments, and the doubts, I moved forward, despite the fear, the loneliness, the injustice, the exhaustion…