From skating to surviving: Ava Pettigrew’s story of triumph and growth

Ava Pettigrew has faced challenges that would break most people.

Heart palpitations during Pettigrew’s first year at Syracuse University led to tests that uncovered a rare tumorous mass on her heart. She’s the youngest person on record to have this condition.

But thanks to the resilience built from a decade of competitive skating, the public relations and political science sophomore’s determination and strength continue to define her.

Drawn to the ice

Now a dual public relations and political science major from Freehold, New Jersey, Pettigrew has been a competitive skater since she was 9. 

After growing up taking dance classes, Pettigrew developed an obsession with hockey in 4^th grade. Her parents put her in Learn to Skate and Pettigrew’s raw talent became apparent. Her best friend at the time figure skated and her mom encouraged her to continue skating, so she pursued it on a competitive level.  

“I skated for 10 years on from that,” Pettigrew said.

Beginning as a freestyle skater, she evolved into a competitive ice dance.

“It was more my forte,” Pettigrew said.

She explained that her dancer background assisted her in being elegant on ice. She enjoyed ice dancing where timing was emphasized over the more technical freestyle skating.  

“Skating was my entire life for a while, it was my everything,” Pettigrew said.  

She was an accomplished skater, making it to the 2019 national Solo Dance final during her freshman year of high school. She missed the first school day when she traveled to Utah to compete. 

Pettigrew felt that over the past decade of skating, she developed more than just her skating skills, she built a strong mind-muscle connection. 

“If something was wrong, I knew it,” she explained.  “I was very in touch with myself and my body. I could feel every mistake. I could feel when something was wrong.”

A surprise diagnosis

During March of her first year at SU, Pettigrew began experiencing heart palpitations. She did not tell her mom for a while, not wanting to leave school and not ready to possibly face a major problem. 

It wasn’t until the drive home from the end of the school year that she told her mom that she had been dealing with palpitations for a few months. Then her mother immediately booked an appointment with a cardiologist, worried about what this could mean. 

Her cardiologist brushed off the concerns, believing that the palpitations were just due to the steroids in her inhalers. However, a precautionary echocardiogram proved an issue that needed to be addressed.  

“I’d gone on vacation and the day after I got back, we had found out that there was a mass on my heart,” Pettigrew shared.

The next week while she was in the hospital for testing, the doctors determined that the growth was benign and told her she would return at a later date for the surgery. 

The doctors’ diagnosis turned out to be incorrect was they discovered that the mass was hemangioma, a tumor that makes up for less than 3% of cardiac primary tumors. It was not until the day before her surgery that she learned the extremity of the open-heart procedure she would undergo.

“Recovery was very difficult, even normal bodily functions were very hard,” Pettigrew said.

She had to relearn how to walk, move and gain back her strength. After being on bedrest for two weeks she began the recovery process.  

Exactly six weeks after her surgery, Pettigrew made impressive progress and returned to Syracuse for her first day of classes during sophomore year. Gradually she would make her return to the gym.

But she was still in recovery and had to be very careful. Even with a brisk walk to class, her heart rate would reach 160 beats per minute, about 50 beats above what is considered an average walking heart rate.

The tumor came with no symptoms, and she credits her mind muscle strength to what helped her realize something was wrong.  

“I just got really lucky that I knew something was wrong and I could feel it,” Pettigrew said.

While like everyone, Pettigrew faced a lot of adversity in her life, this experience was the most shell shocking experience of her life. 

Bigger questions

“I’ve never been this close to death,” Pettigrew said. “I was at constant risk of a stroke or sudden death for months and had no idea,”

She struggled, wondering: why her? Why would something so horrible happen to someone who worked so hard to be physically and mentally healthy?  

She came out of the experience with a whole new perspective: don’t take anything for granted. You truly never know what someone else is going through, and aside from her family and close friends, many of her peers did not know the challenges she was enduring. This showed her just how important it is to approach others with an open mind and empathy. 

For Pettigrew, this experience will forever be a defining chapter in her life. Not just because it was a major surgery that so few experience, but because it showed her how much she is physically and mentally capable of.