Toni Braxton Underwent ‘Traumatic’ Heart Surgery After Life-Threatening Lupus Complication

Toni Braxton had a recent “traumatic” and life-threatening health scare that occurred as a result of her living with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the most common form of lupus.

Toni Braxton’s lupus complications causes scare

In an exclusive with People, the singer who was diagnosed with SLE in 2008, revealed that back in September she underwent a procedure after 80% of the main artery in her heart was blocked.

What is lupus?

Lupus is an autoimmune disease that occurs when your body’s immune system attacks your own tissues and organs.  It causes inflammation that can affect the joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart, and lungs.

As someone who’s been hospitalized “more times than I care to admit” from the chronic illness, Braxton knows the importance of staying on top of routine blood and urine tests to assess how the lupus is affecting her organs.

Toni Braxton says it’s important to get routine tests for lupus

However, she admitted she unforunately slipped up last year.

“I kept putting it off thinking, ‘Oh, I’m fine. I’ll be okay.’ But my doctor was persistent and I went to get tested in the last week of September. I did a specialized test and they looked at my heart and saw some abnormalities,” Braxton told PEOPLE. “I found out that I needed a coronary stent. My left main coronary artery was 80% blocked. The doctors told me I could’ve had a massive heart attack, I would not have survived.”

“It was a traumatic moment for me. I was in shock,” she recalled. “I remember that day because my chest was aching often, just hurting. And I thought I was just sad because unfortunately my sister [Traci Braxton] had just passed and I thought, ‘Wow, I’m really aching in my heart for my sister.’ And come to find out, of course I was sad about my sister, but I also had underlying health issues. It was my body talking to me, telling me something’s not quite right.”

Two days after her screenings, Braxton had the emergency surgery and a stent placed in her heart. A stent is a tube that helps keep the passageway open.

Although the incident was traumatic, Braxton says she’s glad it wasn’t a fatal heart attack.

“I look at it like it was a blessing in disguise for me because now, putting off tests? Oh no, I will not put off tests,”

Braxton has now partnered with the Get Comfortable campaign to encourage and empower people with lupus and lupus nephritis — a type of severe kidney disease caused by SLE — to “get uncomfortable” and prioritize their health by going to the doctor and completing routine testing to help prevent irreversible kidney damage, specifically women of color.

Braxton emphasized that Black and Asian women are four times more likely to develop lupus nephritis and the risk of death is three times greater for people with it.

“It’s important to get those screenings — simple things,” she says. “The goal here is long life and old age.”