Stefani's Story

Hi, I’m Stefani McCowan, I’m 42 years old, a military veteran, mom, and wife. I survived one of the craziest cases my cardiologist has ever seen and I’m here to tell you about it. 

I was born with a heart murmur. I was told at an early age the murmur went away on its own. I grew up very poor and we never saw a doctor. I started passing out randomly at age 15, and I never really knew why. I thought maybe it was just because I was overweight as a teen. I joined the military at age 25 and made it through boot camp with no issues. However, as soon as I went on my first deployment to Iraq, my passing out spells really ramped up. Military personnel deemed it as heat exhaustion because it would get to be around 130 degrees in Iraq. Ultimately, I was told to just fall back in line and press on, so that’s exactly what I did.  I would pass out often and hide it from my sergeants.  So, when I got back to the states, I told my military supervisors what had happened, and they sent me for testing. Testing came back totally normal on the EKG, so I just thought there was just something else wrong with me. I continued to randomly pass out no matter what type of physical shape I was in.

After being out of the military, I became a mother and a disabled veteran not able to work so I picked up the game of disc golf.  Then one day in 2022, when I was playing a round of disc golf alone, out of nowhere I felt that feeling like I was going to pass out. I started losing my hearing and had dark tunnel vision. It was at this time, I felt my heart beating so incredibly fast and in my neck.  I remember thinking that I was going to die.  I ended up passing out and when I woke up, I knew that this was different than the times I had passed out before. The next day, I went to the VA to get checked out and see what was going on with my body.  During the exam, she noticed I had an Apple Watch on and asked if I could pull up the data off my watch. It recorded an actual heart attack. My heart completely stopped for almost a full minute.

She sent me right away to get testing done at the hospital.  I got another EKG, but the young man saw something in there he wanted to explore a little further. He did a bubble study, which is where they shoot bubbles through an IV showing where there could be a hole or something along those lines. The study looked like a Sprite can had exploded into the side of my heart and showed a severe hole. I’ll never forget my cardiologist coming and looking at the study and telling me…” oh my God, Stefani…That’s a lot of bubbles!!!”

After the bubble study, surgery was scheduled for 3 weeks away.  I was pretty nervous about having open heart surgery.  I knew I had to be strong for my family.  I was prepped for surgery in Lubbock, Tx (where I live), but was woken up and they told me my heart was too severe to do the surgery in Lubbock. Instead, I was referred to Baylor Heart Hospital in Plano Texas, one of the top heart hospitals in the country. I sat at my home in Lubbock Texas as I waited a few months for all the insurance authorizations and approvals to be complete. 

During this wait time, my anxiety was high knowing how bad my heart was and thinking I could possibly just die any day. This was really hard, but I had lots of friends and family that supported me and helped me through that wait time. The day finally came for surgery. (September 9, 2022) While in surgery, they not only patched a severe hole, but they found I didn’t have a flap on my valve, and I needed a completely new one. My husband and I were completely unaware of the issue with my valve until I had already gone into surgery. My husband told me he was anxiously waiting in the waiting room for me to wake up and the cardiologist came out and told him I was doing fine, but they discovered I needed a new valve. They asked my husband to choose a mechanical or an animal valve and he had about 15 minutes to decide. He spent the next 15 minutes frantically googling what was the best option and decided on an animal valve made from pig tissue. My hole was patched with cow tissue, so now I’m a true animal.

I was born with these heart conditions and never knew anything about them. The only thing we knew about was the heart murmur. But because I didn’t go to the doctor to follow up, we never knew about these other conditions.  I just thought I was weird or had poor health but never thought it could be my heart this whole time. I recovered pretty quickly from surgery. My cardiologist said this was the most severe case he ever had and was shocked I was doing so good. He cleared me to drive after about 3 weeks.

My husband and my son were there for me as well as my many close friends and little family I have left. I thank God for helping me live to see another day. These days I look at life differently and I’m so grateful for the little things.  I feel like God has bigger plans for me and that’s why I didn’t die any of the 100s of times I passed out in my life. Since surgery, I’m happy to report that I have had zero pass out sessions. I’m doing good and loving life.

I highly encourage anyone reading this to get checked if they feel any weird heart rate, passing out, unexplainable conditions just in case. I was very lucky to have survived. By sharing my story, I hope to spare others from experiencing what I went through.