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.