Teenager mistakes heart attack for ‘butterflies in stomach’ after dancing with a boy

When Ceirra Zeager was 14 years old, she returned home from a school dance where she felt “butterflies” in her stomach after dancing with a boy for the first time in her life.

It was not long before she passed out on the floor of her family home, with the “butterflies” soon being followed up by an “intense burning pain” in her arm, which she can now recognise as a major sign of a heart attack.

The teen, from rural Pennsylvania in the US, was rushed to hospital within 10 minutes after feeling deep fatigue and arm pain, but doctors dismissed her concerns as “teenage anxiety”, not giving her any medication for it.

“It really broke me to hear that because I felt embarrassed that my whole family was there,” Zeager, now 23, told Insider.

READ MORE: Danish Queen to have major surgery after condition ‘worsens’

However, the doctor recommended she get referred to a children’s hospital, where she was immediately sent into emergency surgery. 

It was only after the surgery that doctors discovered that she had suffered a heart attack, as a result of a blood clot passing through a patent foramen ovale (PFO), a hole in her heart.

Normally a PFO does not result in any major complications, but doctors found that Zeager had unusually “sticky” red blood cells, due to elevated lipoprotein A, contributing to the blood clot that caused her heart attack.

READ MORE: Madonna unleashes after picture sweeps the internet

The teen was then sent home with blood thinners, but the early heart attack irrevocably changed her, with Zeager saying it left her permanently damaged”. During the rest of her school years, she could only attend for half a day, using a backpack with wheels to take pressure off her heart.

“I felt like everyone was looking at me like I was a porcelain doll,” she commented.

Her symptoms worsened in 2021, when she began to experience extreme fatigue, unable to even cross a room without catching her breath.

After consulting multiple cardiologists, she found that she had a “leaky” heart valve that had been damaged during her heart attack all those years earlier. They recommended open-heart surgery to repair the valve as soon as possible.

READ MORE: Search for answers after baby’s preschool choking death

Though the surgery was scary news, Zeager said she felt “calm”, as “I was listened to for the first time,” she reflected.

Though that didn’t stop other worrying thoughts. She shared that when the surgery was scheduled, her first thoughts were, “What does the surgery entail? What’s the recovery like? Will I survive?”

Before the surgery, Zeager and her family went on a trip, where she ended up tying the knot with her boyfriend, calling it her potential “last hurrah”.

READ MORE: Rumours of Leonardo DiCaprio’s new teen girlfriend shut down

“I’m glad I did that, because I would have gone crazy if I had just been sitting around waiting.”

She underwent the surgery in February 2021, and after a gruelling recovery, Zeager is now an advocate for the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women “Real Women” campaign. Through her new role, she is aiming to bring awareness to the signs of heart attacks in young women, making sure that they speak up for themselves.

“I had this crazy, tragic thing happen to me, and I want to use it for good and raise as much awareness as I can,” she said, “I have purpose now.”

For a daily dose of 9Honey, subscribe to our newsletter here.

What happened to the actress who played Amber from Clueless?