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 :-)