It wasn't long ago when a McAllen mom found out that her heart was barely functioning.

Celia Juarez said it's something she could've caught sooner if she hadn't ignored her symptoms.

Juarez said that every day she wakes up is a gift now, because it wasn't too long ago that she was working closely with doctors to keep her heart pumping. She says the scariest part was that she didn't even realize something was wrong.

"I wasn't ready to leave...to die," Juarez said.

Juarez — a high school teacher and a mom of three grown children — said she's always been fairly healthy throughout her life, until one day she didn't feel right.

"I started feeling sharp pains in my chest, pressure, then I started feeling very tired," Juarez said.

Although it was unusual, she didn't think it was anything serious. Then her symptoms got worse.

"I started feeling palpitations, fluttering like butterflies in my chest. I told it to a friend, and she's the one that said you better get that checked out," Juarez said.

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Doctors did an EKG to see how her heart was functioning; the results came back abnormal.

Her heart was only working at 25% and within a few months, dropped to 23%.

Juarez was diagnosed with heart disease, and doctors also found she had a leaky heart valve.

"I got scared. I wasn't ready to go," Juarez said.

Dr. Augustine George, an interventional cardiologist, said women can experience different signs of heart disease than men.

The signs are in various forms. The most common and most important one is chest pain," Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Augustine George said.

Other common symptoms are fatigue and abdominal pains, signs that Juarez ignored in the beginning.

"Heart disease comes in many forms. The one that is really causing more attention is blocked arteries that supply the heart." Dr. George said. "This could be very fatal if it is not identified early on."

Juarez was soon put on medication and monitored while physicians guided her through lifestyle changes.

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