A new lease on life. Susan Lucci underwent emergency heart surgery in the fall of 2018 after doctors discovered two blocked arteries. Now, the All My Children alum is happy, healthy and feeling better than ever.
“I’m doing great,” Lucci, 72, told Us Weekly exclusively at the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women Red Dress Collection fashion show in New York City on Thursday, February 7. “I feel wonderful. I’m doing very well.”
The Devious Maids actress didn’t have to make any lifestyle changes following her surgery because she “had already been eating the super foods and [doing] the Mediterranean diet.” She explained: “For me it’s DNA. My dad had calcium blockage in his arteries when he was 49, but my dad was a smoker so I never made the connection that I might have the same thing because I’m not a smoker at all.”
While changing her diet isn’t necessary, Lucci did admit that keeping herself calm is very important. “The DNA you can’t alter, but some stress management you can,” she told Us. “And in terms of diet, I always think there’s room for improvement, so I’m cutting back a little on sugar. I don’t know if that’s going to help — we’ll see.”
The All My Life author opened up about her health scare on Good Morning America on Wednesday, February 6. “I was actually in a boutique and I suddenly felt what I had heard someone on a TV interview years ago, a woman says that she, leading up to a heart attack, had felt like an elephant was pressing on her chest,” the New York native recalled.
Lucci said she was “shocked” to learn that she had two blocked arteries and would have to undergo surgery that evening to get two stents put in. The soap opera star’s doctor later assured her that her heart “is like the heart of a 20-year-old” and her condition is due to “genetics” and “stress.”
With reporting by Diana Cooper
