January 20, 2023 – Channing Muller was 26 when he had his first seizure. A vegan and recreational runner for ten years, it shocked both her and her doctor.
“The first time it happened was the morning after I climbed the bars,” said Muller, now 37. “I took a step out of bed, my heart was racing, my whole body was tingling, and I lost all color in my face.”
She tried curling up into a fetal position and trying to get back into bed, but her heart rate wouldn’t slow.
“I could breathe, but I couldn’t regulate my breathing,” she recalls.
After calling her roommate for help, the two rushed to Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., five blocks from her apartment.
“They immediately hooked me up to an EKG machine and gave me an aspirin,” said Mueller, who now runs her own marketing company in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “When my heart rate slowed down, I realized my heart was beating over 200 beats per minute during the 45-minute heart attack.”
After more tests, she was airlifted to the cardiac care unit at Washington Hospital Center, also in Washington, D.C., where she underwent more tests. There, her doctors discovered that she had a blockage in her left anterior descending artery (LAD), also known as a “widowmaker” because the blockage stopped all blood flow to the left side of the heart.
“Nevertheless, because of my age, I was sent home for medication rather than a stent,” she said. “I was told to go to cardiac rehab where I would be monitored.”
A month later, she returned to work and was stressed out when she started feeling severe tightness in her chest.
“I had nitroglycerin tablets with me, but after I took the second one, I knew I needed to go to the hospital because my heart rate wasn’t slowing,” she said.
When she arrived at the hospital, she had a full-blown heart attack and after doctors inserted a catheter into her heart, they learned the artery was 95 per cent blocked.
At that point, there was no choice but to place a stent and restart cardiac rehabilitation.
For Muller, these two events changed his life in every way.
“Cardiac rehab is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself because it taught me to trust my body won’t let me down again,” she said. “It’s also helping my mental state. Here, I’m a runner, I’m a vegetarian, I’m at the right weight, and it still happened. I needed to accept that, and cardiac rehab helped me.”
Within a year, the damage from the heart attack had healed, thanks to her age and hard work in rehab.
“Unless you knew I was someone who endured this situation, you’d never know there was anything wrong with me,” she said.
On top of that, she resumed her exercise routine and ran her first half marathon in 2019. In December 2021, she’s running the first of 12 marathons to mark her 10th anniversary of heart health (she plans to run two more in the next few months). What doesn’t get lost is , she had to run 26.2 miles, and she was 26 when she had a heart attack.
“I want people, especially women, to know that you have to advocate for yourself,” said Mueller, who sits on the boards of the American Heart Association and Go Red For Women. “Our biggest concern is we don’t want to make a fuss, or we think it’s an anxiety attack, or you’re stressed. Make a fuss.”
She also urges us all to know the difference between a panic attack and a heart attack.
“For women, they feel very similar,” she said. “The difference is that if you have a panic attack and focus on a point on the wall and take a deep breath, you will be able to and your heart rate will slow down. The heart attack won’t stop. You can’t focus on getting out of it. It has to go with the flow nature.”
Today, Muller sees her cardiologist every year and takes four cholesterol-lowering medications, a baby aspirin and blood pressure medication every day.
Mueller said her heart attack changed her forever.
“I strongly believe that we are a product of our experiences and how we process them,” she said. “It was the worst experience but I managed to get through it and I learned how to be more in tune with my body.”
It also prompted her to dedicate her life to physical challenges.
“Who knows if I’d be so focused on my marathon if I hadn’t proven that I could get over this horrible thing,” she said. “I was forced to be a stronger person, so here I am!”
