Next week my 13 year old daughter Maddy will undergo heart surgery.
We had no idea she a heart condition and you’d never have guessed it over the past 5 years she has played competitive basketball. However on March 8th she called home from school saying she had trouble breathing and could I come pick her up. Of course, I’ll be right there. So, I went to get her and she complained that it felt as if someone was sitting on her throat.
Thinking it was a breathing/lung issue and seeing as I know something about breathing techniques and pranayama, I helped her focus on the exhale and filling her lungs from the bottom, making the breath long, slow and deep. Her teacher had noticed an elevated heart beat and I thought this was due to a panic attack from not being able to breathe.
We went home and had her relax. After a while her heart rate still hadn’t come down so we went to the Stollery Children’s Hospital ER where the triage nurse went about recording her weight, vitals, temperature and other information. When I mentioned the elevated heart rate which the teacher said may be about 150 beats per minute (bpm), she looked at me as if to say “really?” Maddy said she thought that was what he said and I mentioned we noticed her heart beat by her collar bones thumping away like hummingbird wings. Maddy (being a typical teen) wears her long hair forward, so we brushed the hair back and could then see the heart beat. The nurse connected the thumb pulse monitor which read 210 pbm. She tapped the monitor, to see if it was working right I guess, then took her pulse with her fingers while calling over another nurse.
At that point things moved quickly. When you show up at ER with a heart rate of 210 bpm you get immediate attention. They grabbed a wheel chair and took Maddy back to one of the large examination rooms with all kinds of equipment. I registered providing address, name, insurance, etc. By the time I got back there (not 5 minutes later) she had 5 doctors/nurses working on her and had her hooked up to an EKG machine. She was having a supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) episode and they needed to administer some medicine to temporarily stop her heart then start it again. Scary stuff.
They explained it would feel like your heart is going down to your feet for about 5 seconds. Maddy says it feels much worse. However, the medicine did it’s job and her heart returned to a slower, more natural pace. Within 10 minutes it was down to a steady 120 bpm. However, the doctors then noticed an irregularity in Maddy’s natural heart rhythm. After consulting with a cardiologist they confirmed she had Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (WPW) and has always had it.
They explained that Maddy may never experience SVT again or she may have it regularly. They taught her a couple of techniques to manually interrupt SVT so as to avoid ER visits and medical intervention. SVT is more of a nuisance and not life threatening for most individuals with WPW. If it became an issue of 3-4 times a week, they would put her on heart medication and possibly, if needed, go in surgically (ablation – a catheter via the groin) to fix the problem.
We went home and researched WPW.
Ten days later Maddy had another minor SVT episode but got it under control quickly. A week after that while skiing over spring break she called to say her SVT was acting up. I drove out to the hill and we headed for ER. Just before arriving the SVT stopped. I took her to the ER anyway as this episode had lasted about 1 hour and I was hoping the doctors could give us some more information.
When you show up at the ER after SVT you do not get seen to immediately. We waited and waited but eventually the cardiologist came down and consulted with us. He was fabulous. He told us all about WPW, SVT, what we could expect and suggested that if we wanted to get into his office quickly for a consult that we divide the appointment into two parts: a 2 hour testing visit with a 1 hour consult on a different day. I said sure and expected to hear from the office sometime in the next 3-6 months.
Four days later (Tuesday) the cardiologist office called and said Maddy’s appointment was that Thursday, April 4th at 2:00. On Wednesday they phoned and asked us to come at 12:30 for an Echo, Stress Test and EKG. On both Tuesday and Wednesday Maddy had brief periods of SVT. Thursday we arrived at the University of Alberta Hospital pediatric cardiology unit. They started with the Stress Test. Just like James Bond, Maddy was connected to a bunch of cords to monitor her heart while she walked, then ran on a treadmill. She did great, lasting more than 12 minutes and was resting during recovery when her heart went into another SVT episode.
Calmly the tech administering the test called for assistance and Maddy’s cardiologist (Dr. Joseph Atallah) walked in. Under his guidance Maddy was able to interrupt the SVT and return to a natural heart rate – YEAH! I said to the cardiologist that I hadn’t expected too see him that day. He responded, “Oh yes, you’ll be consulting with me today” then left with a ream of data from the machine which had been hooked up to Maddy the entire time.
We completed the Echo and EKG, then went to a examination room to wait for Dr. Atallah. Soon he joined us and showed us the results from the Stress Test saying Maddy had High Risk WPW (there is only low or high risk) and that she would need surgery immediately or was at a 0.5% risk of sudden death. He had cleared his schedule making space for us as a top priority on April 16th. He talked us through the pros and cons as well as the risks. We left his office overwhelmed but confident we were in the best hands possible.
Now we are waiting until next Tuesday. Maddy is thrilled that she gets out of PE class. We’ve re-arranged our lives and called in favors from friends and family. The outpouring of support we’ve received has been amazing. Thank you to everyone for your kind words, prayers, phone calls, conversations, promised meals and good will.
The surgery will take 2-4 hours. We will be at the Mazankowski Heart Institute. They will keep her overnight but we expect to be home on Wednesday. There is a 90-99% chance of success so the odds are definitely in our favor. After the surgery Maddy will no longer have WPW and will be able to return to normal activity.
I am thankful to live in a day where heart surgery is an option and can be accomplished quickly, where there are experts who lend their talents to saving lives daily, to a health care system which takes care of critical need and where we don’t have to take out a second mortgage to pay for it. Most especially I am thankful for our health, for friends and family and your loving care and concern.
UPDATE: April 16th – The surgery was successful. Counting our blessings
UPDATE 2: May 2nd – Maddy has experienced 2 episodes of heart palpitations since the surgery. We are back to the cardiologist for more testing. Hopefully they are phantom symptoms as her heart heals.
