New mom faces life-threatening heart attack after childbirth

Friday, October 16, 2020 (American Heart Association News)-Chanel Davis Mitchell and her husband, Benji Mitchell, were looking forward to becoming parents after the birth of a healthy boy, Braxton.

Despite Chanel’s increased water content during the high-risk pregnancy and the last two months, doctors ensured that she was all well after childbirth.

And, 11 days after Braxton’s birth in May 2016, Chanel and Benji were preparing to take Braxton to a pediatrician’s visit when Chanel began to feel sick. She had chest pain and thought she had an extreme case of heartburn.

“It was the worst feeling I’ve ever had,” she said.

Chanel’s symptoms worsened when they drove to a Braxton clinic about 30 miles away in the North Carolina countryside. She was nauseated. Her arm hurt. Benji noticed that Chanel seemed to be cold sweating. She chewed an antacid pill and had little reaction.

Benji calmed down and changed course. He went straight to the emergency room.

“My instinct said,’Go to the hospital,'” recalled Venge.

I remember Chanel being connected to an EKG monitor and telling her doctor that she had “really bad gas.”

“No,” the doctor replied. “You have a heart attack.”

“Great,” she said. Then her heart stopped.

Chanel, who was 36 at the time, was in cardiac arrest. The medical team performed CPR to shock the heart and beat it again. It took 3 minutes.

“I didn’t know if she would come alive and out of the room,” Benji said.

Chanel was airlifted from Elizabeth City, North Carolina to a larger hospital in Virginia Beach, Virginia. On a helicopter, she had difficulty breathing because her lungs were filled with liquid. Thoughts ran through her mind. I couldn’t see it clearly, so I thought, “I’m flying for the first time, but I can’t see it!”

At Virginia Hospital, her heart stopped again. The doctor revived her again.

She underwent four emergency bypass surgeries. She had more than 90% occlusion in four arteries and suffered a sudden tear in the arterial wall called idiopathic coronary dissection (SCAD).

Patients with SCAD are often otherwise healthy women. Recently, many have given birth to babies. Recurrence is an ongoing risk.

Doctors later told Chanel that the type of heart attack she had was almost always fatal. They warned that she could face a long recovery, but Chanel was able to leave the hospital only four days later.

“Nothing seemed to happen,” said Chanel, a special education teacher who resumed her college classes next week.

She continued to gradually regain her strength through a cardiac rehabilitation program.

Chanel and Venge said that going to the hospital immediately saved Chanel’s life.

“In another five minutes, it probably ended in another way,” said Benji, who remained with Chanel after the surgery. When she couldn’t speak, the couple communicated through the sign language Chanel was learning and signed each other “I love you.”

One of Chanel’s greatest struggles has lived for fear of having another heart attack.

“I’m worried,’Will it happen tomorrow? Will it happen tonight?’ I’m worried about what to leave.”

Driven by the horror, she started her diary. Every day during the first three years of Braxton’s life, she wrote her thoughts, so Braxton was always able to get “direct communication” from her.

Braxton, now four, is too young to understand what his mother endured. But strangely, when I see the shape of the heart, it “remembers my mom”. When Braxton was a baby, Chanel noticed that his nose hole was shaped like a heart. Chanel and Venge are still laughing at something.

Chanel, now 40, continues to take cardiac prophylaxis. She recently scheduled a visit with a Tennessee SCAD specialist. She wants to be proactive about avoiding another heart attack.

SCAD is not uncommon, but meeting survivors is not uncommon, said Chanel, who recently attended the American Heart Association’s Red for Women event.

“It was very helpful to see other women who have experienced so much,” she said. “I didn’t know, they were all sisters. It was very moving. I just had this connection.”

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