This is going to be hopefully a post that may help a few people. You constantly about heart disease and it’s symptoms, but never about heart tumours. That’s because they’re rare, but they do happen. The type of tumour I had,an atrial myxoma is the only tumour that grows on the heart. It’s slow-growing and has no symptoms until it’s almost too late. My heart surgeon said it could have been growing for up to 20 years. There was no chest pain,only shortness of breath which began about 6 weeks before entry into the hospital on July 5th my city was covered in smoke from nearby wildfires. I was having trouble breathing, but passed it off as the smoke. my breathing improved a little after the smoke cleared, but it still worried me. it became an issue about 3 weeks later when I couldn’t walk a block without having to stop to catch my breath. Finally ,I took a cab to the walk in clinic to get checked for walking pneumonia.the doctor listened to my heart and lungs and agreed with my thoughts,prescribed antibiotics and an inhaler. I went next door to the pharmacy, filled the script, then left. It took only 6 steps, 3 in a straight line, 3 pulling to my left before I fell. Apparently piece of the tumour broke away and caused a stroke. I was lucky to be helped right away. An ambulance was there quickly and I was in hospital ad in an MRi where they found the tumour. There was no real way of knowing it was there before the MRI. So I guess the advice here is, if feeling chronically short of breath, make your doctor check your heart, it might save your life.
How It Happened
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