INDIANAPOLIS — As a young mom, indoor climber, jogger and exercise enthusiast, Mokoto Nakamura says she felt healthy.
"I was really passionate about helping elderly populations," Nakamura said. "And also the refugee populations that were coming to the clinic."
The clinic social worker became a mom in 2010 to her son and says she recovered fine.
Two years later, while considering trying for a second child, she decided to check in with her doctor to see about a known pre-existing heart condition.
Her doctor, just to be safe, had Nakamura get an echo-cardiogram, a decision that likely saved her life.
"That echo-cardiogram showed that there was aneurysm," Nakamura said.
She was referred to a surgeon and eventually underwent four open heart surgeries due to some complications.
The fourth surgery she says was the hardest, after a fungal infection from an earlier graft almost killed her.
"I spent 3 months at the hospital," Nakamura said. "And that recovery was really tough."
But in that downtime away from her passion of exercising, she found a new passion for her new lifestyle as a heart warrior: gentle yoga.
"I want people to know, that yoga really helps with both physical and mental health," Nakamura said.
Nakamura says she not only wanted to get the physical benefits of being active again, but she had also developed a lot of anxiety from her heart surgeries, something she has learned is common with people who undergo similar surgeries.
She says yoga helped put her mind at ease and work her body in a safe way, so she decided to further study the practice and now teaches on the northeast side as a yoga instructor.
Her biggest advice for all people is to know you are never too young to have underlying issues, and having that annual checkup with your physician is so important.
If you want to learn more from Nakamura at her yoga classes, you can find her at BodyZone (Community Hospital) and she has her own business called Yoga 4 Heart, at www.yoga4heart.com
She helps a number of people who graduate from cardiac rehabilitation and is a certified 500 RYT yoga teacher.
