It took some time for Jen Mayadas-Dering to find the right sport, but when she tried racquetball, everything clicked.
She quickly grew a passion for it, becoming a professional racquetball player. Her playing career brought with it accolades and a reason to travel all over the world.
“The tournaments, the competition, it was invigorating and I always felt good,” Mayadas-Dering said. “After playing, I would come home and I’d be energized.”
Then one day, it all stopped.
“I remember telling my trainer at one point, ‘I’ve got to stop for a little bit, I might have a heart attack or something,”’ she said.
Mayadas-Dering sought help from her doctor, but kept getting the same advice.
“I was told to go see an [ear, nose and throat doctor], that women get vocal cord dysfunction because they talk so much,” she said. “And I was told to lose weight.”
It was hard for her to believe what she was hearing.
“Every time I walked out of the doctor’s office, I thought to myself, ‘this doesn’t seem right,’” Mayadas-Dering said. “Something’s really wrong.”
After 14 doctor visits, with her condition worsening, she sought help from doctors at Westchester Medical Center. She found out she was in heart failure and needed a transplant.
“I remember when they said, ‘OK, it’s time to go,’ I cried the whole way,” Mayadas-Dering said. “I wanted to make sure that I was able to come out and see my husband again.”
Six weeks later, she received a new heart.
“That was the most amazing feeling,” Mayadas-Dering said. “To say to my kids, ‘it’s OK, Mom’s all right.’”
Since then, she’s found a new mission: spreading awareness about gender bias in health care.
“The doctor sees you as, maybe it’s hormones,” Mayadas-Dering said. “You need to lose weight. Maybe you have anxiety. But they don’t look at you and say, ‘let me figure out what’s really wrong with you.’”
More than 70% of cases studied show that women wait longer on average for a health diagnosis than men. That data out of the National Institutes of Health highlights how the medical industry has been trying to navigate gender bias for decades.
Recovery is a lifelong process for heart transplant patients; Jen can still play racquetball, but not yet at the level she once did.
Right now, she’s focused on the American Heart Association’s “Leader of Impact” campaign and raising money on behalf of her mission.
“The reason why I did this was to help women advocate for themselves,” Mayadas-Dering said. “I’m a big advocate for myself and even I got dismissed. Some people that don’t have that natural ability may walk away and not make it back. And that’s a big problem. We don’t want that to happen to women.”
More information can be found about Jen’s campaign on the American Heart Association’s Leaders of Impact website. The campaign concludes Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 9 p.m.
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