‘I’m pacing myself’: 3 weeks post-heart attack, Will Jawando is back at work

Three weeks after suffering a heart attack, Democratic candidate for Montgomery County Executive Will Jawando is back at the office.

The at-large council member, 43, made his in-person return to the Montgomery County Council on Tuesday morning before holding a press conference where he shared details of the heart attack he suffered during a pickup basketball game on Sept. 5.

Jawando was hospitalized and underwent surgery at The George Washington University Hospital, where a cardiologist — the same doctor who performed Dick Cheney’s 2012 heart transplant — inserted a stent.

He said the heart attack changed his perspective.

“It makes you think about the people you love, the fact that you get to still be here with them, about the community that I’m very blessed to serve and the work that I still want to do,” he told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

Jawando said he feels well, is on track to a full recovery, and returned to his council duties virtually last week. But he said he needs to ease back into work.

“While I’m much better and I feel a lot better than I did three weeks ago, I am going to intentionally be pacing myself per doctor’s orders and not pushing it,” he said.

What happened at that basketball game?

Jawando, who played basketball for St. John’s College High School and Catholic University, was on the court in a Georgetown gym with a group he’s been playing with for more than 20 years: a carryover from the days when then-White House Associate Director of Public Engagement Jawando and former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan regularly played pickup games with President Barack Obama. (Neither Obama nor Duncan was at the game earlier this month.)

Jawando said he woke up that Saturday morning feeling good. He even hit the game-winning shot in his group’s first game.

The losing team wanted to play another round. A few minutes in, Jawando felt short of breath and had chest pains.

“I’ve been doing this long enough to know that when you feel something, just stop,” he said. He stretched out on the gym floor as his fellow players brought him water and tried to figure out what was wrong. He tried to stand and felt dizzy.

“I said, ‘I think we should call the ambulance,” Jawando said. “That was kind of the last thing I remember.”

He said he was right not to try to tough it out.

“There’s a lot of people who would have said, ‘It’s just heartburn. I’m just a little out of breath.’ Thank God I didn’t do that,” he said.

Jawando called the experience a “wake-up call,” citing 2026 American Heart Association data. Heart disease, the leading cause of deaths in the U.S., impacted more than 130 million Americans between 2021 and 2023, including 63% of Black men and 60% of Black women.

The council member said he considers himself healthy, without any known underlying conditions. But the stress of the campaign likely contributed to the heart attack, he said, and in future he said he will delegate more and manage stress better.

“I hope to use this as an opportunity for a public education,” he said.

What does this mean for Jawando’s council job and county executive campaign?

Earlier on Tuesday, Jawando joined his colleagues in person for the first time since before the council’s summer recess.

“Welcome back, Mr. Jawando,” council President Natali Fani-González said upon his entrance as he gave hugs to each of his colleagues. “Whatever you guys may think, we actually love each other. We do.

“We care for each other and I think we have our differences, but that’s part of having a healthy county where you have members with different ideas and you debate them,” continued Fani-González, who had endorsed at-large council member Evan Glass over Jawando in June’s Democratic primary.

At his press conference Tuesday afternoon, Jawando said he plans to return to the campaign trail this weekend. He faces Republican Esther Wells but is widely expected to win the county executive race in heavily blue Montgomery County.

As county executive, Jawando said he would move quickly to appoint a new police chief. The former chief, Marc Yamada, resigned suddenly last week after the county’s inspector general issued a critical report that cited, among other matters, his failure to take leave.

Jawando has worked a truncated schedule, while recovering and placed several events on his calendar that he later decided not to attend.

Days after his heart attack, Jawando floated the idea of joining a campaign event at Lone Oak Farm Brewing Co. in Olney on Sept. 10, but did not attend, and was scheduled to make an in-person appearance at the council for a media briefing on Sept. 15, but later cancelled.

“I didn’t feel ready,” Jawando told reporters on Tuesday. One of the medications prescribed to post-heart attack patients lowers blood pressure, he noted, which can cause lightheadedness.

“Could I have come and hobbled through it? Probably,” Jawando said. “But I thought it was better to give another week and rest and listen to my own advice and doctor’s advice of pacing myself.”