There cardiologists discovered something was growing deep inside her heart. Heart imaging showed a tumor originating in the heart\u2019s left atrium was growing into the left ventricle through the mitral valve.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a myxoma \u2013 a big growth in the left atrium of my heart that was significantly blocking blood flow through my heart valves,\u201d says Cox. \u201cBefore I fainted in the shower, I had no symptoms or chest pain at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The large, non-cancerous, soft heart tumor turned out to be a whopping 6.5 cm in diameter, the size of a tennis ball.<\/p>\n UConn Health\u2019s Dr. David Underhill<\/a> successfully performed the lifesaving open-heart surgery by cutting through the membrane separating the left and right atria in order to remove the tumor. Interestingly, a cow\u2019s membrane had to be used to reconstruct Cox\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a wonderful surgeon, who saved my life,\u201d says Cox. \u201cI am exceedingly fortunate to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis benign tumor like the size of a tennis ball grew in the heart’s left atrium,\u201d said Dr. Kai Chen<\/a>, Cox\u2019s attending cardiologist from the Pat and Jim Calhoun Cardiology Center at UConn Health<\/a>. \u201cIt is very rare, particularly in this large size.\u00a0 After surgery to remove the tumor and reconstruct her heart, her prognosis is excellent. She is doing very well now.\u201d<\/p>\n Cox advises other people to never neglect getting a serious health concern checked-out by doctors. She also suggests consulting a family member or friend for an objective opinion instead of just deciding yourself to not seek follow-up medical care.<\/p>\n \u201cGo to the doctor or the ER to get checked-out,\u201d says Cox. \u201cIt\u2019s a good thing I went. And now I am back to normal and probably even healthier too.\u201d<\/p>\n Cox recommends anyone to go to UConn Health for treatment. \u201cI want to thank UConn Health for really fine care because here I am still alive!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn addition, the new UConn John Dempsey Hospital tower is brand new and state-of-the-art,\u201d says Cox. \u201cI received excellent attention and everyone was so professional and kind.\u201d<\/p>\n And in addition to her heart surgeon and cardiologist, how does a vegetarian like Cox feel about a cow\u2019s role in saving her life?<\/p>\n \u201cI am sad about the death of any animal, but I am incredibly grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI am exceedingly fortunate to be alive,” says Marcia Cox whose rare tennis ball sized heart tumor was caught by UConn Health emergency department physicians and cardiologists and successfully removed by a UConn Health heart surgeon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":134770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-134717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 16:22:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/134770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134717"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=134717"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=134717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Marcia](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Marcia-Cox-personal-photo-300x300.jpg\")