WPDE evening anchor Summer Dashe held onto a secret for a long time.
“I would get up, crawl to the bathroom then anchor the news. This would be my routine everyday,” she said in a piece that aired on the Sinclair station in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Wednesday night.
“Doctor after doctor would tell me it was anxiety- panic attacks,” Dashe explained after her debilitating symptoms went diagnosed year after year.
But when she went to visit her sister in Nashville, Tenn. last year she ended up in the hospital and a cardiologist had a different idea. They suspected she was living with POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which affects blood flow.
“Initially, I didn’t want anyone to know about my diagnosis. I thought if people in the news industry found out they would think I was un-hirable.”
She is now getting treatment for through medicine and physical therapy.
Dashe is on a mission to raise awareness about the disease. She speaking to medical students about POTS and did a story on her journey.
You can watch it below as well as get resources about the condition.