Support Anne Waters' Fight Against Heart Failure

Hi, my name is Anne Waters. I was born on April 5, 1974. I was born to a father who was an alcoholic and a mother who was bipolar, so needless to say, my childhood was not easy, and I worked hard to overcome it. I was raised in Charlotte County in the latter part of my life after being tossed around here and there. At the age of 18, I got pregnant with my first child, Chris. He is now 32. I realized that I had to take care of more than just me. He was a joy to my life that I never knew I needed. He saved me. Lots of bumps and twists and turns along the way, but in 2001, I met the man who was going to be my future husband and father of my children. Over the years, he and and I built a home not only for us but for our three children. We also learned along the way that love was not always enough to keep a relationship alive and intact. We divorced in 2014. We co-parent amazingly, and we are also good friends.

On August 1, 1999, I started work for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office as a dispatcher/jailer from August 1999 to May 2024. That was the date of my retirement. I stayed on part-time because I still needed to make some extra money, but I was able to retire and be comfortable with only the two part-time jobs. In October 2024, I started having symptoms of shortness of breath. My belly felt tight. I had a cough at night that wouldn't go away—all things I just attributed to me getting older. On October 23, 2024, I had my oldest son Chris take me to the nearest ER, where they diagnosed me with gallstones and told me to meet with the surgeon as soon as I could. So I called the next morning to do it before the surgical consult. They happened to have a cancellation, so they told me I could come on in. When I came in, before I even took a seat, the doctor looked at me and my son Chris and said, "Don't even sit down. This is not gallbladder. This is cardiac. You have to go back downstairs." We went back downstairs. They did more tests. The doctor came in and told me that I was in congestive heart failure. I'm only 50 years old. Needless to say, I was shocked. I have been hospitalized twice since then. None of my reports are looking well. My mitral valve prolapsed, and I also have a mild leak around the tricuspid valve. The left atrium valve is severely dilated. My heart is only working at 20%.

I was working three jobs before this happened. I had my own dog grooming business on the side, which I loved, but I've had to give that up since then because I cannot be there as much as I need to be to make my customers happy. I did not want to cancel on them on days when I just couldn't seem to get it together. The scary thing to me is that, come to find out, my condition is hereditary but undiagnosed. Also, my sister died at 39 in 2010, and as the genetic cardiologist read her autopsy, she said she would not be scared to say that was what happened to my sister when she died.

I wanna live. I wanna live for me. I wanna live for my kids. I wanna live for my family. I wanna live for my friends. I wanna be a productive citizen of society again. I want my life to go back to the way that it was. I don't wanna sound selfish because I'm not, but I'm not ready to give up. That word is not in my vocabulary. Being in law enforcement for 25 years taught me and showed me so many things. One thing it did for sure was to never give up, to keep fighting. So that's what I've told the children we're gonna do. We're gonna keep fighting. My oldest son Chris is 32, then my middle son Cole is 18, and my beautiful daughter Cambrie is 14. They deserve a healthy mother. My mother died when I was 22 by suicide. I don't ever want my kids to grow up and know what it's like to not have a mother in their life. They have a dad who is such an amazing support system. I'm just still in shock that this has happened to me and unfortunately need any support we can get until we are able to see what the next steps are.