Photo:Courtesy of Amanda Banic
Courtesy of Amanda Banic
Amanda Banic was 35 weeks pregnant when she started experiencing severe chest pain. She went to the emergency room, believing it was a heart attack, and after being monitored, doctors sent her home with a “diagnosis of indigestion and anxiety,“Good Morning Americareports.
However, the chest pains continued days later and the 35-year-old mom-to-be also experienced pain in her jaw and vision.
“I just felt in that moment that this was it. I think I’m dying,” Banic told the outlet. “I didn’t know how else to explain it. I had just never felt anything like it.”
Despite the pain, Banic said she was “fearful” of going back to the emergency room and having her symptoms dismissed again. Her husband, Derek, ultimately insisted she seek help and after arriving at the hospital, doctors needed to immediately medevac Banic to a larger hospital, Corewell Health, over 80 miles away in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
While there Banic was diagnosed with aortic dissection, a life-threatening condition in which a tear occurs in the inner layer of the body’s main artery (aorta), according to theMayo Clinic. Blood rushes through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to split and normal blood flow throughout the body may slow or stop. If blood passes through the outside aortic wall, the condition is often deadly.
Symptoms of aortic dissection include sudden and severe chest or upper back pain, stomach pain, shortness of breath, loss of consciousness, leg pain, difficulty walking and more.
Aortic dissection occurs in about 2 out of 10,000 people and is most often seen in men ages 40 to 70, according to theNational Library of Medicine.
“I don’t think I even realized really what was happening until I got to Grand Rapids and was rolled into the operating room and it was just packed to the gills with doctors and nurses and techs,” Banic said. “Then it hit me that it was a pretty serious situation.”
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Banic was taken off life support on May 14, 2023, on Mother’s Day, and was finally able to meet Baylor for the first time. Doctors later explained how her daughter actually saved her life before she was born.
“Because of the way I dissected, she kind of was in there, essentially holding everything together,” she toldGMA. “Had she not been in there putting the pressure on all the right places, my outcome may have been very different, so she’s kind of a little miracle, in more ways than one.”
Banic added that her little girl also motivated her during her recovery process, being able to go home in less than 20 days after doctors expected her to need rehabilitation and in-home nursing care.
source: people.com
