A mom-of-two was told she was suffering from panic attacks and anxiety after years of breathlessness and fatigue – before doctors discovered she had a rare congenital heart condition.
Abigail Louise, 36, attended her GP numerous times between 2021 and 2025 with symptoms and was referred to therapy “five or six” times after it was thought she had anxiety.
She began struggling while at the gym, as well as experiencing weight gain and fatigue.
In December 2024, Abigail attended her local hospital’s A&E after finding herself unable to climb a flight of stairs at work and experiencing “shooting” chest pain.
Tests showed Abigail had a right bundle branch block (RBBB) – a condition where electrical impulses in the heart are delayed or blocked, affecting the right ventricle’s contraction, and a suspected heart murmur.
She was referred to specialists who – after a further 24-hour ECG and echo cardiogram – found she had a leaking heart valve.
After a specialist at her local hospital found there was “something else” wrong, she was referred to Royal Brompton Hospital, London, who confirmed Abigail had Ebstein’s anomaly – a rare congenital heart defect characterized by a malformed tricuspid valve, which affects blood flow between the heart’s chambers.
The condition can lead to improper closure of the valve, causing blood to leak back into the upper chambers of the heart.
Abigail required lifesaving surgery and lost 22 pounds in the lead-up to help lower the risk before undergoing a nine-hour cone procedure – where surgeons reconstructed her tricuspid valve using her own tissue, restoring near-normal valve function – in May 2026.
Now nine weeks into recovery, Abigail is set to undergo 12 weeks of cardiac rehab starting at the end of August and will “hopefully be a little bit back to normal.”
Abigail, who works in education, says: “I don’t know how I got to 36 without it being found.
“I don’t know how I went through two pregnancies without it being found.
“It’s so rare they [doctors] can’t figure out if it’s completely random or hereditary.
“There are around 40,000 people in the world with it at the moment, and most of them are babies.
“Sitting in the hospital bed the day before my surgery was the scariest part.
“It wasn’t as easy as they thought, and it would be a nine-hour operation instead of six.
“Afterwards I got pneumonia, and my lungs collapsed because of the bypass, which is known to happen.
“My heart went into complete heart block.
“I don’t know where I’m going to go in recovery, whether I’ll make a full recovery and be doing cartwheels again or have a slower pace of life.
“But I’m optimistic it will be good either way because two years ago I didn’t know if I’d even be here.”
Abigail initially began experiencing a “weird heart rhythm” and a red mark on her leg whilst celebrating her birthday in 2021, followed by shortness of breath and vomiting.
She also recalls during childhood her inability to “keep up” with other children and always having blue lips “even if it wasn’t cold.”
After calling an ambulance and being taken to A&E, she says she was told she was suffering from a panic attack, despite a scan showing she had RBBB.
“I said, ‘but no, I didn’t, there was nothing to panic about, it doesn’t fit or feel right’,” she told Talk to the Press.
“I thought nothing of it and thought maybe I had had a panic attack: I didn’t know what it is.
“It snowballed after that, I had fatigue every day.
“I felt like I was going to faint more, I was frequently breathless.
“I was an avid gym-goer at three or four times, and a week, and that was less and less.
“I went back to the GP over the space of four years numerous times and said ‘there’s something wrong’.
“I said a panic attack doesn’t cause me being unable to walk upstairs.
“They kept saying I had anxiety, and I had trained my brain to think this now.”
She also struggled with an increased need to use the toilet, and weight gain.
“They put me through therapy five or six times in this space,” she said.
“They [therapy providers] said we don’t understand, you’re not depressed, you don’t have anxiety, we don’t understand why you keep being referred to us.”
Finally, after returning to A&E in December 2024, Abigail was referred to cardiology who uncovered her leaky valve, before transferring her to Brompton Hospital where she received her Ebstein’s anomaly diagnosis.
“I was told by Brompton that Ebstein’s anomaly is very, very rare and only three surgeons in the UK had ever done the operation to fix it,” she says.
“And then I met my surgeon who saved my life.
“I met him via video call and had the first appointment to talk about the surgery, and he was very worried about my weight.
“I lost 10kg and they did the surgery.”
Abigail’s surgeon performed his fiftieth cone procedure on her on 29 May, and despite requiring a four-week hospital stay after contracting pneumonia and both lungs collapsing, she was discharged in mid-June.
“Two weeks after surgery they thought ‘should we put her a pacemaker in or should we leave it a bit longer’ and then magically my heart came into a rhythm,” Abigail says.
“Those nurses who were on my ward are absolute angels.
“I’m nine weeks post-op now.
“I’m doing really well, everything has recovered.”
Abigail’s NHS trust was contacted for comment.
