After being told she had always been dramatic, Marina Jones was abruptly told she had heart failure. Jones was diagnosed with a disease that prevented her from living a regular life at the age of 16. Learn more about how she developed heart failure after receiving a diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension.
Marina remembers always realizing there was a problem with her physique. When she was just 7 years old, the difficulties began. During gymnastics class, she found it difficult to keep up with her friends as they performed laps.
When she told her gym teacher that she was feeling lightheaded and breathless, her worries were discounted. Jones claims that when her teacher brought it up to another educator, they both laughed it off. Marina remembers that they responded, “You’re being dramatic. Even people with heart problems can run laps.”
They just told her to get more exercise as she tried to explain the same thing to them every day. Things worsened when she became fifteen. Jones began to suffer from crippling migraines. When she expressed concerns over the same, the physicians suggested that she eat more and attributed the symptoms to low iron levels.
I kept to myself. I was unsure about the issue. “I simply knew something was,” Mariana remembers. When she made the decision to travel to Georgia to see her sister’s college, everything changed. Mariana was walking around the campus with her mother, younger sister, boyfriend, and other family members.
At this point, the company encountered a steep incline that, considering her precarious health, Jones was reluctant to ascend. I don’t really recall what happened after everyone told me to hurry up. I simply awoke on the pavement. In an interview with People, Mariana recounted, “I had completely passed out.”
Jones’s heart was pounding when she woke up. Mariana’s mother called her primary care physician right away to let them know what had transpired. To determine the cause, the family physician ordered an X-ray.
According to Mariana’s X-ray results, her heart had doubled in size as a result of years of difficulty pumping oxygen. She was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension a few days after the results were released.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the illness is a form of hypertension that impacts the arteries in the heart’s right side and lungs. A person’s heart may fail as a result of the ailment.
I noticed right away that the life expectancy was five years following diagnosis. “And I was sixteen,” she remembers. Things began to go south when she was 22 years old. Mariana began to have significant symptoms while she was enrolled in an esthetician school. Even walking from her car to the class was really challenging for her.
She was informed that she had heart failure after a routine cardiac examination. She would require a lung transplant, the doctor informed her, because her condition was so bad. Mariana revealed, “I understood that I could die if I didn’t say yes.”
She underwent surgery shortly after to receive replacement lungs. Mariana had a double lung transplant that lasted eight hours. She recalls experiencing terrible pain when she woke up following the procedure.
Mariana remarked on how wonderful life is now that she had recovered from the health scare and had had surgery. There have been difficult times. I am still subject to limitations. I continue to visit the doctor. However, she says, “life is so good now.”
