CHICAGO -- Shaunté Brewer didn’t know that her health was in danger at age 13. As the Chicago resident recalls, she was more focused on passing her softball test in gym than on her prevalent cough. Fortunately, Brewer’s mother determined that the sound and persistence of her daughter’s cough called for a trip to the hospital.

“The way she described the cough was a mix of a smoker’s cough. Imagine a 13-year-old girl with a super deep cough,” said Brewer, now 36. “I just knew my mother was waking me up for nothing at all. I never made that softball test. As soon as we went into the emergency room, I knew triage was going to look at everything and say you can go home with a cold.”

But when she was shown her X-ray, her heart was on both sides of her chest. Brewer said her heart was swollen to the point where it was struggling to beat.

“Thank God for my mother,” Brewer said.

She remembers how her mouth-breathing while running led physicians to the root of the problem. She had myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle. Dr. William Cotts — Brewer’s cardiologist and medical director of advanced heart failure and heart transplantation at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn — said Brewer’s condition was caused by a virus. Her body likely attacked her heart when it was attacking the virus.

“Oftentimes it’s self-limited, it gets better, people’s hearts get back to normal, they’re fine,” he said. “And in some patients, their hearts worsen over time.”

Brewer was put on medication and maintained her health, living her life to the best of her ability — traveling, becoming an educator and signing up to be an organ donor at age 19, not knowing that she was going to be on the other side of the process one day.

When coming back from a trip to South Africa with layover in Amsterdam, Brewer contracted COVID-19. And while she and her heart made it through that, Brewer said she felt different afterward. She didn’t have the energy to do anything from that point on. She lost a bunch of weight and couldn’t keep food down. Again, she went to the hospital, thinking it was a stomach bug.

“Lo and behold I found out that was my heart saying, ‘I fought the good fight, and it’s time to retire,’” Brewer said. She went into Christ Medical Center and less than a week later, on Feb. 12, 2023, she had a new heart. She remained in the hospital for six weeks.

Brewer celebrated the first anniversary of her heart transplant during February, which is American Heart Month, with a trip to Wisconsin Dells and celebrations with friends and family. She was used to living with decreased heart function for the majority of her life, and had come to terms with the fact that she may not make it to her 80s or 90s, like her family members.

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