ALL My Children actress Susan Lucci was in the hospital recently to undergo a heart procedure for the second time. Lucci spoke out on February 14, 2022, about her struggles with her health and what prompted her to rush to the emergency room. Who is Susan Lucci? Susan Lucci, 76, is best known for her […]
ALL My Children actress Susan Lucci was in the hospital recently to undergo a heart procedure for the second time.
Lucci spoke out on February 14, 2022, about her struggles with her health and what prompted her to rush to the emergency room.
Susan Lucci, 76, is best known for her role as Erica Kane on the ABC soap All My Children.
She started on the show when it made its primetime debut in 1970 and continued to portray Erica Kane for the next 41 years, ultimately ending her time on the show in 2011.
However, she did not leave the show of her own volition as it finally ended its run that year, pushing her to retire.
Lucci later published a memoir about her time on the show entitled All My Life and speaking on the show’s ending, she said, “I went through the whole range of human emotions, sadness and disbelief, and some anger.
“It kind of messed with my sense of self-worth as a performer and my journey through that.
“And at the end of the day, as I say in the chapter, I’m filled with gratitude.”
She got her start on the show right out of college at only 22 years old and played the role of 15-year-old Erica Kane.
“Erica Kane was a spectacular role for any actress to play, and I felt so lucky to be the one who got to do it,” Lucci told NPR after the show ended.
“To find the part of a 15-year-old girl that was that juicy and had that much potential, I really thought Erica Kane had the possibility to be a modern-day Scarlett O’Hara.”
Lucci received a total of 19 Emmy nominations for Best Supporting Actress and finally won in May 1999.
Susan Lucci announced she recently went to the hospital to undergo surgery for heart failure.
This is not the first time she has undergone surgery for her heart as she was rushed to the emergency room in 2019 for another scare.
Lucci told Good Morning America she had experienced the same symptoms as the last time including shortness of breath and discomfort around her back and her ribcage.
“I thought, ‘This is crazy. These are the same kind of symptoms that I had three years ago but it can’t be,'” she said. “But when I lay down, I started to feel a sharp coming-and-going pain in my jaw.”
After calling her doctor who told her to go to the hospital, Lucci was told she had an 80 percent blockage in one of her arteries. The cause, she said, was plaque buildup.
Dr. Richard Schlofmitz, who is the chairman of cardiology at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York, performed the surgery on Lucci and put another stent in her heart.
A stent keeps a person’s arteries fully open and improves blood flow to the heart.
Schlofmitz told Good Morning America that he waited for Lucci to get worse and although she wasn’t having a heart attack this time around, he said her “symptoms … were certainly concerning to me that something might be wrong.”
Susan Lucci has become an advocate for heart disease and realizing the early warning signs after going through it herself.
She speaks out for the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign and urges women to listen to their bodies and seek professional help if something doesn’t feel right.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about one in 16 women experience cardiovascular disease and it is the leading cause of death among women in the US.
In 2019, cardiovascular disease killed more than 301k women and the CDC says only 51 percent of women realize “heart disease is their number one killer.”
“Listen to your heart and act on (the symptoms),” Lucci told Good Morning America.
“Give yourself permission to take good care of yourself. Be your own best friend. Be your own advocate. You’ll save your life.”
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