One year after heart transplant, teacher educates students about healthy lifestyles

CHICAGO — When Shawntae Brewer was 13 years old, she didn’t know her health was at risk. As Chicago resident Shawntae Brewer recalls, she was more focused on passing her gym softball test than her pervasive cough. Fortunately, Brewer’s mother decided that the sounds of her daughter’s cough and her persistence meant she needed to go to the hospital.

“She said her cough was a combination of a smoker’s cough. Imagine a 13-year-old girl with a bad cough,” said Brewer, now 36. . I have never taken that softball test. The moment I walked into the emergency room, I thought the triage would check everything and tell me it was okay to go home if it was just a cold. ”

However, when she was shown an X-ray, her heart was on either side of her chest. Brewer was so swollen that her heart was struggling to beat, she said.

“I thank God for my mother,” Brewer said.

She remembers how mouth breathing while running led doctors to the root cause of the problem. She had myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. Brewer’s cardiologist, Dr. William Kotz, medical director of advanced heart failure and heart transplants at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, said Brewer’s symptoms were caused by a virus. Her body may have attacked her heart while the virus was attacking.

“In many cases, it will subside on its own, it will get better, and people’s minds will return to normal and they will feel better,” he said. “And in some patients, their heart deteriorates over time.”

Mr. Brewer took medication to stay healthy and lived his life to the best of his ability. He traveled, became an educator, and at the age of 19 registered to be an organ donor, a process he did not know one day that he would end up on the other side of the world.

Brewer contracted the coronavirus upon returning from a trip to South Africa with a layover in Amsterdam. And while she and her heart got through it, Brewer said her mood changed after that. From that point on, she had no energy to do anything. She lost a lot of weight and could no longer keep her diet in check. She went to the hospital thinking she had another stomach problem.

“Lo and behold, it turned out to be what my heart was saying, ‘You fought the good fight, it’s time to retire,'” Brewer said. She was admitted to Christ Medical Center and received her new heart less than a week later, on February 12, 2023. She was hospitalized for six weeks.

Brewer celebrated the first anniversary of his heart transplant in February, which is American Heart Month, by traveling to Wisconsin Dells to celebrate with friends and family. She had become accustomed to living with her heart functioning in decline for most of her life and accepted the fact that she might not live into her 80s or 90s like her family.

“Now that I have the transplant, I feel like I want to be here until I’m 90 years old. I can be here with the rest of my family,” she said. Ms. Brewer is committed to sharing her experience as a transplant recipient with the world, including elementary school students.

As the founder and executive director of Vision Outreach, an initiative that teaches STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math), urban agriculture, and social-emotional learning in classrooms, she has since taken on the role of behind-the-scenes wellness. We continue to discuss science. She currently teaches elementary school students at the Cambridge Classical Academy in the Grand Her Boulevard neighborhood.

Brewer said she accepts calf hearts and lungs from a butcher shop so students can perform fake surgeries. When students ask questions about her surgical scars or watch the 36-year-old use her cane, Brewer turns their questions into teachable moments about science, biology and healthy lifestyles. I’ll change it. She aims to pass on her knowledge as well as her wisdom so that it spreads further and changes the way the black community is viewed and makes people healthier and happier.

“I talk about their diet and nutrition,” she said. “I’ve always been a tech-savvy person. Here I’ve included science related not only to space but also to health. Students who have seen me over the past two years know that I am a PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) ) I saw you come to school with a line. So they literally saw the progression of my health condition and I told them to remember: Have you ever heard me talk about anything other than positive? I always keep a positive mindset.”