So the Sunday before I was going to start my sophomore year in high school I got out of the shower and I passed out on the bathroom floor. I had passed out before but this time was very unexpected. My mom freaked out when my dad found me on the bathroom floor. I didn't really understand what was going on and the only thing that I was really focused on was the growing pain in my neck and head from colliding with the wall. My mom took the initiative to take me to the hospital which I did not think was necessary but ended up being the right decision.
At the hospital they ran various tests and the one that ended up being the most intriguing was the EKG. The test turned up an irregular electrical pathway in my heart, a condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White. I will not go into to much detail but this visual represents something of what the doctor would have seen when he looked at my EKG in the hospital.
So the next year of my life was spent trying to figure out how serious my condition is. The effects of the disorder differ greatly between people and the doctors were (and still are) unsure if my passing out in the bathroom was related to this condition. I spent a couple days wearing around a portable heart monitor called a Holter monitor to monitor my heart over the course of a full day. (example on left) The information that they received from these tests was apparently not enough to make any final decisions about what they should do with me so we scheduled heart catheter surgery for that March and got ready for that.
So a couple days before surgery I went to the hospital and they ran more test one of which was the echocardiogram which I thought was really interesting and fun, mostly because I could see my heart in live action on the screen. I think that most people are familiar with ultrasounds that are performed on pregnant woman so that they can see if the baby is healthy. An echocariogram uses the same technology to map out the heart. It was really sweet.The plan for the surgery was then set that they would go up through the veins in my legs using a catheter. They would then induce my heart into an irregular rhythm and then see if they could ablate the region of my heart that is responsible for my problem to remove the irregular beat.
The day of surgery came and I was at the hospital for over 24 hours but I was able to go home early the next morning. (Pretty incredible for having heart surgery!) I was in surgery for about 8-10 hours and the medication they gave me kept me out of commission for about a week. They were not able to solve my irregular heart beat but they did found out that I am low risk for any further problems and that I can live my life normally. I share my story because it highlights many of the medical advances that affect everyone's daily lives. How many people do you know that have had some form of catheter surgery? I bet you know someone who is a ultrasound technician. More importantly, do you know someone whose life was saved because of technologies similar to these ones?
