Keen runner went into heart failure after marathon due to congenital defect

SWNS

Madi DiBattista, 25, discovered she had a life-threatening heart defect after completing the Flying Pig half marathon in Cincinnati on May 3, 2024.  Despite achieving a personal record, Madi struggled with fatigue and shortness of breath after the race.  Tests revealed she had an anomalous left main coronary artery, which can be fatal if untreated.  She underwent open-heart surgery on August 16, 2024, to correct the defect.  Madi, who had fainting episodes as a child, credits running for helping her detect the condition, which was previously undiagnosed.  She’s now recovering and slowly returning to running.

Transcript

00:00I was 24 years old, went into heart failure. Not 1 in 5,000 people get this diagnosis. No way that

00:05I could live another 10 years on this heart. These cases are found in autopsies and almost 100%

00:11of those cases are exercise induced, which is kind of insane because I literally run marathons on

00:17this heart. This is the kind of anomaly that people have when you hear horrible stories of

00:21people in their 20s having a heart attack or kids on a soccer field passing away from physical

00:27activity. But anyways, people keep asking me, how did you know or how did you not know?

00:31So I'm going to go through the diagnosis, the symptoms, the surgery, the process, the whole

00:35thing. From as early as being a toddler, I had had episodes of passing out and I've gotten worked

00:40up for that a couple of times. I've gotten an EKG, but the only thing that could really diagnose what

00:44I have is a CT scan with contract. About a year before I was diagnosed, I started to experience

00:49shortness of breath and I started losing weight. By the time surgery rolled around, I'd lost like

00:5420% of my body weight. Fast forward, six months before I got diagnosed, I started to experience

00:59really horrible chest pain. I thought that I was having panic attacks, so I hired a therapist.

01:04I was having insane heart rates, like north of 200. I started getting night sweats, hand

01:10swelling, rashes. By the end, I could not get up a flight of steps and that was pretty insane

01:16for someone who had run marathons before. It was all very, very unusual. I remember looking

01:22up my symptoms and WebMD said, you were in heart failure. I was like, yeah, right. I just

01:26went and finished my workout because I'm 24. Six weeks before my diagnosis, I ran a half

01:33marathon that was a flawless time. It was a great day. After that, my health just absolutely

01:38deteriorated. I thought that I was having a really hard time recovering. The shortness of

01:42breath, I thought maybe I'm dehydrated, maybe I'm anemic. The nurses joked that I was basically

01:48overdosing myself on iron. Crazy black market liquid supplements. I was taking like three

01:54times more iron than I needed in a day. I went to my primary care physician and laid

01:58all of this out to her and she looked at me and was like, you're 24. We're going to get

02:02your blood work done. But I've seen people that are in heart failure before and you can

02:06typically tell like they look unwell and you look fine. And we both just kind of laughed

02:10like that would be crazy. And when I got my blood work done, I passed out and started

02:16throwing up and I had the same shortness of breath, nausea, like the whole, everything that

02:21I'd been experiencing came on so strong, like passing out when you give blood. Okay. But this

02:26was excessive. So at this point, my dad and my stepmom were pretty moved in and I gave them an

02:31update one night and they ended up calling a neighbor. People are amazing to give me a full

02:37workup. And I was the hospital the next day and nothing's getting better. But I'm like, not really

02:41listening to my body, not taking the time to set the, but they called me and they were like,

02:45you're going today. And the nurse was like, I have availability today or in a month. So you better

02:50get your butt over here. And they gave me the full workup. I had an EKG and echo and a CT of my lungs

02:59with contrast. They were ultimately evaluating me for pulmonary embolism, not anything with my heart.

03:03They were looking at my lungs. The radiologist looked at it and she said, we're good. She's healthy.

03:08The, the surgeon looked at it later that afternoon with me present in the room. And I watched him go

03:13gray, like put on his home doctor face. And he moved me to a bigger conference room. And he was

03:17like, it's time to FaceTime your dad. And I made a joke. I was like, oh, we get the big room now.

03:21I'm special. Like must be serious. That night he diagnosed me with an anomalous left main coronary

03:27arteries. He saw it on the stand and called a cardiologist and they confirmed it that night.

03:31But he did tell me two things. He said, it will probably be surgery. He didn't tell me what kind of

03:35surgery. You will not live another 10 years on this heart, which at the time I was so unbelievably

03:40shocked that it didn't really register with me. I'm not much of a hypochondriac. So I honestly left

03:45this. They're overreacting. Like I proceeded to call my parents and tell them the news and call my

03:52best friends and ask them to go get dinner. And then explained it to them kind of in a chuckle.

03:56And they sat there in front of me, like, what, how are you laughing right now? There's no

04:00way. It's not going to be that big of a deal. I was back there two days later to pick up a heart

04:07rate monitor and that was to track arrhythmias, but really to, to ultimately track a heart attack.

04:12I was back six days later to then talk to a cardiologist. She said, your only option is open

04:18heart surgery and you need to get it done quickly. The surgeon, the surgeon that diagnosed me also

04:23warned me that this is not the kind of thing that just anyone can do. And I definitely experienced a

04:28little bit of some doctor's enthusiasm, a little bit of overconfidence of, yes, I can fix this

04:33being such a unique case. Like hospitals in the United States probably see two or three of these

04:38a year or so. Then I started the process of basically surgeon shopping. Basically in these

04:43weeks between getting diagnosed and having the surgery, the chest pain was debilitating. I could

04:48not get excited. I played an arcade game and like got even the slightest bit of like competitive

04:55excitement and it put me in the hospital. Six weeks later from, from diagnosis, six weeks to

05:01surgery date. I spent probably four weeks figuring out what surgeon was going to do this. Going from

05:07Ohio where I live to the Medical University of South Carolina to get this surgery done. I loved the

05:13doctor that did this for me, but just to put it into perspective, he is a pioneer in this congenital

05:20heart space as is MUSC. And he had seen six of these in his career. Like

05:24you

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