Former Miss Jamaica Yendi Phillips reveals life-saving heart surgery after long battle

Jamaica: A TV host, model and former Miss Jamaica World, Yendi Phillipps, disclosed over the weekend that she recently underwent a major heart surgery. The female shared the development on Sunday through her official Instagram account and opened about her difficult five-year health journey which finished after a life-changing procedure.  

She said, “Well, I did heart surgery,” adding that five years ago, she started having an arrhythmia and she made the necessary lifestyle adjustments recommended by the doctors and then the irregularities became increasingly worse and intense.  

Phillipps described her scariest episode mentioning that one that took place just a few months ago. She noted that what was she doing for her heart to get to 223 bpm, simply picking up her son’s toys and how long did it stay at that rate, for over two minutes which made her unable to breathe and the world around her darkened while her heart felt like thumping in her chest. 

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A post shared by Yendi Amira Phillipps (@yendizzle)

The former Miss Jamaica World disclosed that she had been diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome which is a condition that causes the heart to beat abnormally fast because of an extra electrical pathway in the heart. According to her, to address this issue, she had to undergo and electrophysiological ablation which is a minimally invasive procedure that usually targets and removes the heart tissue responsible for the irregular rhythm of the heart. 

Despite the successful outcome of the surgery, the actor shared that recovery was not easy, especially as a mother of a young child.  

While recalling the hardest part, Yendi Phillipps said that she could not life anything over 10 lbs for 10 days which meant that she could not hold her baby. She noted that at just 20 months, his son also could not understand why he could not lay her chest or tummy which was his favourite way to show affection. 

However, the model said that she is now completely healed and expressed her deepest gratitude to her doctors.