Seventy-two-year-old Susan Lucci is best known for her decades-long portrayal of the spirited Erica Kane on the daytime soap “All My Children.” Last fall, she stepped into a role she never saw coming, the one of heart disease survivor.
On October 23, 2018, Lucci was shopping at the Tory Burch boutique in Manhasset, Long Island when she began to experience tightness in her chest. The actress, during an interview with People magazine, revealed this wasn’t the first time she felt this type of discomfort. It was actually the third.
After the first instance, she shrugged it off as being tired. Lucci said, “I told myself, it’s nothing, it will go away.” She added, “And it did.” When the tightness came back ten days later, the Emmy Award-winning actress explained, “I thought maybe I had fastened my bra too tightly.”
But, the episode that occurred while shopping was different. Lucci said, “It felt like an elephant pressing down on my chest.”
When Lucci sat down to catch her breath at the shop, the concerned store manager offered to drive her to St. Francis Hospital, which was mercifully nearby. While being driven to the hospital, the actress called Dr. Richard Shlofmitz, the medical center’s Head of Cardiology.
According to the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women website, Sclofmitz has treated Lucci’s husband for a kind of irregular heartbeat, referred to as atrial fibrillation or AFib, for nearly 10 years. So, she knew him. The doctor told Lucci to meet him at the ER.
At the hospital, the actress underwent a CT scan. Shockingly, it revealed a 90 percent blockage in her heart’s main artery, often known as “the widow maker.” Lucci also had a 70 percent blockage in another artery. To increase the blood flow back to her heart, Shlofmitz put two stents into Lucci’s arteries.
Lucci told People, “Ninety percent blockage — I was shocked.” She added, “I’m lucky to be alive.”
Lucci’s cardiologist, Holly Anderson, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center, agreed. Anderson remarked, “Had she gone home, that 90 percent blockage could have become 100 percent and she could have suffered a significant heart attack or even sudden death.”
Since recovering from her harrowing ordeal, Lucci has set out to help others through sharing her story. The actress told People, “This is the way I can help. I can tell my story. Everyone’s symptoms are different but I felt compelled to share mine. Even if it’s one person I help. That is someone’s life.”
For years, Lucci stuck to her Pilates routine. You may have even seen her on an infomercial praising the benefits of this form of exercise. Lucci also eats healthy. She follows the Mediterranean diet of fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. So, the actress certainly wasn’t the poster child for someone who is at risk for heart disease.
Lucci informed People, “As a woman you think about breast cancer, not a heart attack. Every EKG I had was great. My blood pressure was on the lower end of normal.”
Despite her herculean efforts to stay in tip-top physical shape, Lucci was at risk for heart disease due to a family history of this common health problem. Her father, Victor Lucci, experienced a heart attack while in his 40s. Anderson revealed, “Her risk was due to her father’s arteriosclerosis, a condition that causes plaque buildup, which can cause blockage and hardening (or calcification) of the arteries.”
The Emmy Award-winning actress now serves as a national volunteer and spokesperson for the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign. Hoping to raise awareness about a condition that kills so many annually. Lucci told People, “We often put ourselves on the back burner. But if your body is telling you something, we need to pay attention.”
Shlofmitz said, “The key thing Susan did was to seek help when she had symptoms, rather than think it would go away.” Thankfully, the Head of Cardiology at St. Francis Hospital added, “She has no damage. Her heart is pumping as good as when she was born.”
