Hooray - a new heart!!

Claudia's operation today couldn't have gone better!
We are relieved, elated and thankful that the ablation procedure was successfully completed and Claudi's heart is mended!!

The new consultant was fantastic - everything we could ever have wished for.
Enthusiastic and willing to explain, he gave Claudi an ongoing commentary from start to finish, although she was mostly too uncomfortable or zonked to follow closely.

From the outset the aim was to induce the arrhythmia, then diagnose, locate and treat it. From 9.45, initial aerobic exercises followed by repeated adrenaline infusions didn't stimulate the problem, so they inserted the catheter wires and started the painful process of mapping the heart in 3D (see attached image) and finally managed to provoke the heart to backfire.



This computer-generated blob is a part of Claudia's upper right atrium. The crosses and colour dots show where the 3D modelling/mapping and ablation "zaps" have been done.

The problem was located in the right atrium (not the ventricle) and for the next hour, Claudia's heart was kept in this uncomfortable Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT) rhythm while they pinpointed the problem area and then burned it.
Apparently the SVT stopped instantly, the moment they completed the burning process.

Another hour was then spent trying to bring on more SVT, without success.
The procedure ended around 2pm, with the consultant feeling confident that the ablation was a success.

Claudia was discharged at 5pm and is back at home with me as i write this :-)

Claudia's heart operation - 2nd attempt...

A lot has happened since my last post and i will attempt to summarise life since March as soon as i can.
But currently the most important news is that Claudia's 2nd heart procedure is taking place tomorrow (Wednesday) at the BRI's Heart Institute.

Claudia pushed for a second opinion having decided against lifelong medication - a suggestion from the consultant who carried out the 1st procedure. This consultant, it turns out is an atrium specialist - and as Claudia's problem is most likely to be in the ventrical area of her heart, it maybe explains why he was unable to diagnose what is going on in her heart and how to treat it.

Tomorrow's procedure will be carried out by the southwest's top ventrical specialist. His waiting list is 48 weeks long!! He's hot on the latest 3d mapping technology available at the institute, used to zero-in the tiniest areas of faulty heart muscle.

If the problem is diagnosed and can be treated, the procedure could take several hours and Claudia will be kept in overnight. The experience, however, will be very unpleasant. During the operation, she will be placed on an adrenaline drip, which will jump-start the heart into its faulty rhythm. This is always painful. And to locate the problem in the heart muscle, they need the adrenaline drip to maintain this arrythmia for (potentially) hours. We hope and pray that the problem will be straight-forward to find, diagnose and treat.

There are various challenges that can present themselves during ablation procedures and statistically there is a risk of a stroke being induced. I don't want to dwell on any of these negatives, and will update the blog once we have the operation behind us and Claudia back home.