Susan Sperling, 75, had no heart problems before, so when she started having pains in chest, she didn’t think much of it, Fox News reports.

“If I would stop walking, it would stop; so I guess I didn’t take it seriously enough,” said Sperling. “I really waited too long to see a doctor.”

Sperling continued to have pain for six weeks before finally seeing her doctor for an electrocardiogram (EKG), which revealed a 95 percent blockage in her main coronary artery. Sperling’s doctor referred her to Dr. Samin Sharma, director of clinical and interventional cardiology at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, who determined she would need stents placed in the artery to prop it open.

Because the plaque buildup on the walls of Sperling’s artery was calcified, Sharma performed a coronary atherectomy procedure to remove the plaque before placing her stent.

The new technology called the Diamondback 360 Coronary Orbital Atherectomy System uses a rotating diamond-coated crown fed up through a catheter to sand away calcified plaque without blocking the artery.

Sperling was back on her feet a day after surgery, and she said she is grateful doctors caught her coronary artery disease in time.