Tesca Kinard had always heard that giving birth to a child is between life and death. After giving birth to her second child in 1995, she truly understood the meaning of this statement.

At the age of 29, Kinard was a glowing expectant mother. At the end of her second trimester and for the duration of the pregnancy, however, her blood pressure skyrocketed -- to the point of damaging her heart muscle. Her heart was severely weakened. The delivery of her child put more strain on her heart, and her blood pressure became so high that she blacked out.

Several days later, Kinard was discharged from the hospital, without any condition but knowing that something had to be wrong. At home with her newborn baby, she experienced shortness of breath, a lack of energy, and heaviness in her chest. Kinard was not well enough to take care of her newborn baby, her two-year-old, or even herself.

About a week and a half later, Kinard was hospitalized with congestive heart failure, with an ejection fraction of 15 percent and a blood clot in her left ventricle. To complicate things even more, her blood pressure was 180/140. Two days later, she was diagnosed with postpartum cardiomyopathy, a rare disorder in which the heart weakens during the last month of pregnancy or within five months after delivery.

Years passed and Kinard’s health seemed to improve, so she decided to return to work. In October 2004, Kinard became sick for five days with what was thought was to be stomach virus. The next day, she went into cardiac arrest and her heart stopped for four minutes.

She was resuscitated, but remained in a coma for two days. When she came out of the coma, she experienced memory loss. Kinard had a defibrillator installed to assist her cardiac rhythm. A month later, Kinard went into heart failure again and she was hospitalized for several days.

“Never in a million years would I have ever thought this would happen to me at such a young age,” she says. “I’m here to say that heart disease attacks all ages and races. I didn’t choose heart disease -- it chose me. It is only by the grace of God, and an excellent team of Duke Heart Center cardiologists, that I am alive today.”