Heart disease has played too large a role in Erica Raspante’s life. She shared her story at the May 1, 2025, Mohawk Valley Go Red for Women Luncheon so that others know that anyone, at any age, can have heart disease.
The day before the Luncheon, Raspante celebrated the two-year anniversary of her heart transplant. Raspante was 40 and a single mother to her 8-year-old son when she had her transplant at Mass General in Boston.
“I was first diagnosed with familial cardiomyopathy when I was 28,” Raspante said. “My family is too familiar with heart disease. My grandmother had her heart valve replaced, and I was in my 20s when she passed of heart disease. My uncle died at 36 of an enlarged heart. My father had atrial fibrillation and an enlarged heart. He was a big advocate for researching and learning. He had an ICD, then an LVAD (a device that helps pump blood from the lower left heart chamber, called the left ventricle, to the rest of the body) before he was able to get the chance to be listed on the transplant list. Unfortunately, he died of complications from the LVAD when he was 60, but he made it as far as he did because he advocated for himself. He was a huge example for me and my brother.”
Raspante is sharing her story at the Luncheon to also be an example and to help educate others.
“You never know what path your journey will take you on,” Raspante said. “I don’t remember seeing women my age talking about heart disease; it was usually older women. Through all of my treatments, I was usually the youngest. I want other women to know that there is a support system out there for them.”
Before being diagnosed in 2008, Raspante felt fine, but when she was out with friends and passed out, and know something wasn’t right. Her dad took her to his cardiologist. At that point, her ejection fraction – the measurement of how much blood the left ventricle pushes out with each contraction – was 36%, which was very low for her age.
Raspante was treated with medication, but when she was expecting her son in 2014, doctors took her off her cardiac medication.
“After he was born, my ejection fraction plummeted to 10%, and I passed out at home three days after the birth,” Raspante said.
Although she was young, she received an ICD to serve as a backup if her heart stopped beating properly.
In 2020, going through a divorce, Raspante’s heart weakened further.
“My doctor told me at that time that broken heart syndrome is real, and that the stress I was experiencing was making my ejection fraction go down,” Raspante said.
In addition to the divorce, Raspante’s father had passed away a couple of years beforehand, and she had already lost her uncle. Her brother had also begun a heart journey, needing emergency open heart surgery after a blood clot broke off and went to his heart. He received a heart transplant in 2020.
Everything was taking a toll on Raspante.
“I was getting worse,” Raspante said. “I couldn’t go upstairs to my son’s room; I couldn’t carry him. My mother was there to help. My ICD became my security blanket.”
In 2022, Raspante was at dinner with friends and her heart stopped.
“If I hadn’t had an ICD, I wouldn’t be alive,” Raspante said. “At that point, doctors started talking about an LVAD as I waited for a heart transplant.”
A million things went through her mind, Raspante said.
“Mostly, what I thought about was my son growing up without me,” she said. “Was this my time? If I hadn’t gotten the ICD, I wouldn’t have survived. It’s all so overwhelming.”
Raspante and her brother credited their father for having taught them how to advocate for themselves. Reluctant to see his sister go on an LVAD, her brother connected her to his surgeon in Boston. When they did a cardiac catheterization, the doctor said that he wasn’t letting her leave Boston.
Again, Raspante’s thoughts were about her son, from whom she’d only been apart for limited periods of time. Family members visited and brought him to see his mom.
Raspante had started the full workup for a transplant the month before, and on April 14, 2023, she went for the remaining tests, where the unthinkable happened.
“The found a cancerous mass in my appendix,” Raspante said.
Immediate surgery removed the appendix before it ruptured, and cleared the cancer so that she didn’t need chemotherapy.
Usually, a patient needs to be clear of cancer for five years before transplant.
“But I wouldn’t have made it five years,” Raspante said.
Surgeons inserted an Impella, a minimally invasive heart pump, and put Raspante on the transplant list.
“It usually takes years to receive a transplant,” Raspante said. “I was listed on a Thursday, and had a new heart on Sunday. If that doesn’t bring you closer to God, I don’t know what will.”
On the day of the transplant, Raspante’s son was her main thought.
“I wasn’t going to let him grow up without a mom,” she said.
Today, Raspante feels pretty good. She takes a lot of medication, and her immune system is compromised, which makes her cautious about being around people, especially in the colder months when illness occurs more frequently.
“I know how blessed I am to be here,” Raspante said. “I don’t know who my donor family is, but my son and I pray for them all the time. For years, I had to tell my son that I was tired and that I couldn’t do things. Now, I’m looking forward to being more active, to traveling, to being around for my son, and watching him grow up.”
To see the video that ProMedia created of Erica’s story, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHxWHGEXLig&t=4s.