La La Anthony recently opened up about her heart surgery to correct an abnormal heartbeat in an exclusive interview.
On June 1, 2021, La La was rushed to the hospital after feeling so lightheaded she had to hold onto the refrigerator to maintain her balance.
She recalls her heart racing and her body sweating.
I never felt anything like that before.
After some convincing from her cousins and her 14-year-old son, Kiyan, she agreed to let them call an ambulance to transport her to the hospital.
Kiyan was like, ‘Mom, please let them call because you don’t look like yourself.
When the EMTs arrived La La tried to convince them she was okay, but one of them told her “If you were my sister, I would say you have to go right now.”
Once she arrived at the hospital, the doctors told her that she would need to have the heart surgery she had been avoiding for two years.
In 2019, while shooting “BH90210” in Vancouver, La La’s doctor became concerned about her heartbeat, and he questioned her, “has anyone talked to you about your heart, your PVCs?”
PVCs also known as premature ventricular contractions, are extra heartbeats that disrupts your hearts normal rhythm.
In some people PVCs don’t cause any serious health issues and recede on their own, but in others they may be due to an underlying condition and require treatment.
A PVC feels like a heart flutter or your heart skipping a beat.
La La had been experiencing these symptoms for years by the time the Vancouver doctor questioned her about them.
I felt my heart racing all the time, but because it’s all I ever really knew, I didn’t even know that it was necessarily something wrong.
I just thought, Oh, you just feel your heart racing sometimes because you’re working too much, you haven’t slept, you’re stressed.
You know, we, especially Black people, like to self-diagnose. We got all the answers.
The Vancouver doctor requested to send her to the emergency room for more testing, but she decided to wait until she got back to New York after filming to get further medical attention.
When she got back to New York, she got an EKG that revealed that she was having 25% more heartbeats than the average person, during the day.
Within a 24-hour period, they said, my heart was beating 30,000 extra beats more than the average person.
It was going fast constantly.… Your heart is a muscle.
If a muscle is working so hard all the time, eventually the muscle will get weak and cause heart attack, stroke, death, whatever it is.
She was prescribed medication to restore a normal heart rhythm, but she stop taking the medication because it made her feel “out of it.”
It really makes you so tired and out of it.
I’m on set. I’m reading scripts. I’m filming.
There’s no way I could just be that tired.
I was literally head-bobbing mid-conversation.
She attempted to manage her stress on her own by sleeping more and taking deep breaths when her heart started racing.
She knew she needed to have the PVC heart surgery known as a cardiac ablation, but the surgery involved one of her biggest fears, needles.
Had it not happened [as an emergency].
I probably would have still just been continuing to put it off, put it off, put it off.
A part of the procedure requires inserting a catheter into the heart , usually via the groin.
The surgery success rate is between 80-100%, but some people have experienced reoccurring PVCs afterwards.
Before having the surgery she made sure to informed her closes friends.
I was like, I have to tell certain people because if they find out, and I didn’t tell them, they gonna flip on me—like Ciara or Kelly or Kim.
So I’m like, ‘Hey, guys, um, listen, I don’t want anybody to freak out.
But I’m in the hospital.’ And they’re like, ‘What? In the hospital? What? We about to get on a flight.’
The surgery was a success, but La La did experience some soreness in her chest for two weeks, she was told not to overexert herself.
Post surgery, La La was surprised to see her EKGs level out after watching them spike off the charts for two years.
Right after I had the ablation, they put me on the EKG, and I’m looking at the monitor.
And it’s just steady and regular. I don’t see a spike anywhere. It’s so crazy. Just that quick. Everything kind of evened itself out and leveled out.
To see that was like, ‘Wow, that’s all I had to do to get this sh*t in order? It’s regular now.’
She now gets bi-monthly examinations to check her heartbeat and make sure it is still normal.
La La Anthony is a self-proclaimed private person, but she decided to share her story to help others who may be struggling with the same issue.
I battled with that for a while.
Most people Instagram themselves in a hospital bed or show the IV or whatever. And I never did any of that.
But the more I thought about it and actually talked to my son, he was just like, ‘Mom, like, it can actually help people out there to become aware of listening to their bodies.
I can turn it into something that can actually help people out there and also make people understand, I’m human. I go through sh*t…it’s life.
Less than a month after the procedure, La La filed for divorce from Carmelo Anthony, after 11 years of marriage.
She said she leaned on her family and friends and her personal choices to get her through the tough time.
The people who know what’s going on or know the truth—my family, my friends—that’s who really matters to me.
There was still such an outpouring of love and support, which meant so much to me. I appreciate that. I go through things. I file for divorce. Things happen. It’s life, and it’s not easy.
When you make a choice to put yourself first and a choice to be happy and really mean that, then a lot of that stuff doesn’t even really faze you or matter anymore.
Watch the video below to hear La La speak on her battle:
Shouts out to La La Anthony for her strength and sharing her story.
Source: SELF
