La La Anthony is a survivor. During her cover interview for Self, she revealed she underwent “terrifying” emergency surgery back in June nearly two years after she was diagnosed with premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) — an illness that causes irregular heartbeats.

“I felt my heart racing all the time, but because it’s all I ever really knew, I didn’t even know that it was necessarily something wrong,” Anthony said. “I just thought, ‘Oh, you just feel your heart racing sometimes because you’re working too much, you haven’t slept, you’re stressed.’”

As her symptoms worsened, however, the “Power” star became more concerned.

“I started feeling it even more — like this fluttering and this racing all the time,” she explained. “I was like, ‘What is going on?’” She eventually took a trip to the doctor’s office, where she learned she was having “about 25 percent more heartbeats over the course of the day than the average person.”

Anthony was given medication to manage the illness, but she experienced side effects of drowsiness that resulted in her failure to oblige to the required dosage. On June 1, she started feeling lightheaded and nearly passed out; a two-hour cardiac ablation followed soon after.

During the emergency surgery, the “incredible” doctors inserted a catheter into her heart and often woke her up to take deep breaths as they attempted to speed her heartbeat. She was discharged from the hospital after a four-day stay but must keep up with bi-monthly checkups. Her decision to share her story came after some motivation from her 14-year-old son, Kiyan Anthony.

“The more I thought about it and actually talked to my son, he was just like, ‘Mom, like, it can actually help people out there to become aware of listening to their bodies,’” the actress told Self. “I can turn it into something that can actually help people out there and also make people understand, I’m human. I go through shit … it’s life.”