Feb. 14 (UPI) — Susan Lucci is going public about a recent health scare.
The 75-year-old actress appeared on Monday’s episode of Good Morning America after undergoing a second emergency heart surgery.
Lucci recalled how she started having symptoms that were similar to the ones she experienced before her first heart surgery in 2018.
“I was having kind of a shortness of breath,” she said. “Then I felt another similar symptom that I had three years ago, which was a discomfort going around my ribcage to my back.”
Lucci said she initially dismissed her symptoms but then “started to feel a sharp coming and going pain” in her jaw. Her husband, Helmet Huber, encouraged her to go to the emergency room, where doctors told Lucci she had an 80 percent blockage in her artery.
Lucci had emergency surgery to have another stent put in her heart.
On GMA, the actress encouraged other people to listen to their bodies and take care of their health.
“Listen to your heart and act on [the symptoms],” she said. “Give yourself permission to take good care of yourself. Be your own best friend. Be your own advocate. You’ll save your life.”
Lucci is known for playing Erica Kane on the ABC soap opera All My Children. She told People this month that “there has been movement” on the All My Children spinoff series Pine Valley.