Emma Willis has told how she was “floored” by a hole in the heart diagnosis as she met another mother with the same condition.<\/p>\n
The broadcaster discovered she was living with a hole in the heart last year.<\/p>\n
The 49-year-old is now backing a new campaign by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to raise awareness of people living with heart conditions.<\/p>\n
Willis unknowingly lived with a hole in her heart for 48 years, which only became evident after a routine health check last January.<\/p>\n
Medics discovered she had an enlarged heart and a hole between the collecting chambers of the heart called an atrial septal defect.<\/p>\n
Willis was told she had a congenital condition, meaning she was born with the hole in her heart.<\/p>\n
It was closed during a keyhole operation at Royal Brompton Hospital in London two months after diagnosis.<\/p>\n
Willis said: “The last thing I expected my cardiologist to say was that it was a congenital heart condition. I was floored as I had gone 48 years oblivious, not knowing anything was wrong.<\/p>\n
“It was a bolt out of the blue, and I had a million questions going through my head.<\/p>\n
“The mental shift was the biggest challenge, because when you hear those words, it terrifies you.<\/p>\n
“My perspective on life shifted. From diagnosis to surgery was the most present I have been in my life.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m hoping that sharing my story will help others going through something like this.”<\/p>\n
Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Willis has told how she was “floored” by a hole in the heart diagnosis as she met…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-285817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115899393867344534","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}