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About 25 years ago, when Sandy Glorioso discovered a small lump in her breast, she knew the doctor’s assessment wouldn’t be good.
Glorioso was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer – but she was lucky. After being treated by a chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin, her cancer completely disappeared.
But during the time of her treatment, she began to develop other, more concerning symptoms. "When I’d walk into work, I’d breathe real hard and I’d have to stop walking. In the cafeteria, over lunch, I’d have to lay my head down,” Glorioso recalled.
Even after she finished treatment, Glorioso continued to experience strange changes to her body. Her body swelled from a size 2 to a size 11 and her fatigue only got worse.
That was when her doctors realized that her chemotherapy drug had likely given her heart failure. "No doctor had mentioned to me that this drug had heart risks," Glorioso admitted.
She was given water pills to help with her body swelling, but her condition only continued to decline.
In 2009, Glorioso had a pacemaker and defibrillator inserted into her chest to support her heart, but just two years, her doctors gave her even worse news.
"Doctors told me that my heart was functioning at only 15%," Glorioso recalled. She would need a heart transplant within the week to survive.
She wasn’t expecting to receive her doctor’s call just a week later. They’d found a perfect match for her.
"I started crying and couldn’t quit," Glorioso said. "I don’t think I could have lasted a couple more days without that heart."
In 2016, Glorioso’s health is finally stable again. She has to take medication two times a day for the rest of her life, just to make sure her body won’t reject the donor heart, but this isn’t putting a damper on her spirits at all.
Now that she’s back in good health, Glorioso hopes to go skydiving, ride horses, and volunteer. And from the looks of it, she’ll be able to accomplish all that and more.
