For the last 8+ years Claudia has had a kind of exercise-induced arrhythmia. When she exerts herself everything at first seems normal. But then her heart suddenly "backfires" into a completely different rhythm - which forces her to stop with debilitating chest pain.
For years she has ignored it, but since the boys arrived these heart episodes have become more frequent, to the point where Claudia decided to have it investigated.
What Claudia seems to have is a short circuit somewhere in her heart muscle.
Today's operation known as a Cardiac Ablation, is designed to search and destroy faulty electric pathways in the heart. The first half of the procedure is called Electrophysiology - a catheter with 4 wires in it is pushed up a vein into the heart. Then using mini-electric shocks, adrenaline injections and xrays, a map of the heart is made and the problem area identified.
The Ablation is then carried out using the catheter instruments. The faulty heart muscle is "put out of action" by quarterising or freezing. This is supposed to be a curative procedure and we were very much hoping that Claudia could put her painful arrhythmias behind her and enjoy getting fit once more.
Unfortunately the outcome of Claudia's operation wasn't what we were hoping for.
The electrophysiology stage revealed that Claudia's heart wasn't misfiring from just one point but multiple points, rendering the ablation process ineffective. The wrong rhythm was also identified as a ventricular tachycardia (VT)- a very unhealthy one.
Sometimes knowledge is power - at other times it's frightening!
Claudia now has to weigh up her options. A lifetime of taking medication is one of them. She's not too keen on that! Avoiding exercise to steer clear of episodes is another - but that carries with it longterm health risks. "Training her heart" to cope with more exertion could be another theory worth trying. Then there's God and anything is possible with him! We've experienced that for ourselves.
But right now we're pretty tired and gutted. A second opinion may be a route to follow, but we'll see.
Monday 28 February 2011
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