For more than two months, Kim O\u2019Neill, 61, spent nearly every night lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if she was going to die in her sleep. Her heart was beating so loudly in her chest she thought it might explode. During the day, she would struggle to walk up a flight of stairs to the second floor of her home and would run out of breath in the middle of a conversation with her husband. A typically active and positive person, O\u2019Neill was terrified that this was her new normal.<\/p>\n
Everything changed in December 2016 when she met Ramesh Hariharan, M.D., a cardiac electrophysiologist with McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital.<\/p>\n
The story begins in 2009 when O\u2019Neill had open-heart surgery to replace her narrowing aortic valve. During the procedure, the atrioventricular node, which controls electrical communication between the top and bottom of the heart, was damaged. According to Hariharan, this happens in about 10 percent of patients because of the proximity of the aortic valve to the atrioventricular node.<\/p>\n
To help the two halves of the heart communicate and synchronize the rhythms manually, the doctor O\u2019Neill was seeing at the time implanted a pacemaker. Becoming dependent on a pacemaker changes the natural sequence of the heart; and over time, O\u2019Neill began experiencing heart failure. This condition happens when the heart muscle weakens and cannot pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs for blood and oxygen.<\/p>\n
In late September 2016, O\u2019Neill\u2019s physician gave her a new pacemaker defibrillator to help manage her heart failure. A pacemaker defibrillator monitors heart rhythms and if it senses dangerous rhythms, delivers shocks to the heart. After the procedure, O\u2019Neill immediately started to notice she was feeling exhausted and constantly out of breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to express my concerns to the physician but the doctor kept repeating that it was part of my heart failure and recalibrated my pacemaker several times. That didn\u2019t work. I began to feel hopeless and that I would never feel like my normal self again,\u201d O\u2019Neill said.<\/p>\n
While visiting her internist for a routine check-up, O\u2019Neill described her symptoms and her latest procedure. The internist immediately suggested O\u2019Neill get a second opinion and Hariharan was the only name she gave.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy internist said the person she would send her family to was Dr. Hariharan,\u201d said O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 3, 2016, within a week of seeing her internist, O\u2019Neill had a Saturday appointment scheduled with Hariharan at the UT Physicians EP Heart Clinic in the Woodlands, near her home in Spring. It is one of eleven UT Physicians EP Heart Clinics across Greater Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe waiting room was full of positive energy and we waited for a very short time. Hariharan came into the room and was so intense and passionate. He had obviously reviewed all of my information. He wheeled his chair right up to me, asked me lots of questions, patiently answered any questions I had and then said the most beautiful four words to me, \u2018I can fix this.\u2019\u201d O\u2019Neill cried when she heard the news.<\/p>\n
Hariharan found that O\u2019Neill was experiencing atrial tachycardia, an arrhythmia that often precedes atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is a condition in which a quivering or irregular heartbeat can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. At least 2.7 million Americans are living with Atrial fibrillation, according to the American Heart Association.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer heart would race 140 to 160 beats per minute, just while she was sitting down,\u201d said Hariharan.<\/p>\n
Cardiac electrophysiologists use advanced mapping techniques to study the electrical activity of the heart to find where abnormal heartbeats might be coming from. Hariharan used this mapping technology to pinpoint exactly where O\u2019Neill\u2019s heart was out of rhythm. He decided she would need a cardiac ablation to permanently fix the problem. Rather than feeling nervous about another heart procedure, O\u2019Neill was thrilled.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s diagnosed something. I knew there was something wrong and now he can fix it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hariharan needed to do something to tide her over until the ablation procedure. In the clinic, he recalibrated her pacemaker to completely ignore the top chamber of her heart, where the issues had originated. It worked.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill was quickly scheduled for an ablation procedure in Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital. A catheter ablation is a procedure that uses radiofrequency energy to destroy a small area of heart tissue that is causing the rapid and irregular heartbeats. Destroying this tissue helps restore the heart\u2019s regular rhythm.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis staff was so friendly. As a patient, it really makes you feel confident and secure. You\u2019re surrendering your life to whoever conducts the surgery. When Dr. Hariharan came into the surgical room, he greeted me and explained everything that was about to happen. It was such a comfortable environment and everything went beautifully,\u201d said O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
Within hours after the procedure, O\u2019Neill\u2019s heart rate was back to normal. She had more energy, less anxiety and could work from her home office again. However, she continued to struggle with breathing and her path to recovery was not quite over.<\/p>\n
Hariharan had also discovered that O\u2019Neill had a re-narrowed and leaky aortic valve, which explained why she was still having such a hard time breathing. The valve had narrowed again after several years of \u201cwear and tear.\u201d He knew that in order for her to live a full life, the valve would need to be replaced. Hariharan referred her to his colleague Pranav Loyalka, M.D., a cardiovascular disease specialist with UTHealth and the Center for Advanced Heart Failure at Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute-Texas Medical Center, who performed an aortic valve replacement in February.<\/p>\n
The normal size of an aortic valve is three centimeters. O\u2019Neill\u2019s was three quarters of a centimeter, which Hariharan described as \u201ccritically narrow.\u201d Loyalka performed a transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVR), a minimally invasive procedure in which he wedged a replacement valve in place of the leaky aortic valve.<\/p>\n
Since the TAVR procedure, O\u2019Neill has felt better than ever. She has energy, breathes normally and feels incredibly grateful for the care she has received.<\/p>\n
\u201cI firmly believe that people who haven\u2019t had a life-threatening experience take life and quality of life for granted. It has made me ask myself what am I going to do with this wonderful gift \u2013 how am I going to honor this gift?\u201d<\/p>\n
On a follow-up appointment with Hariharan in April, O\u2019Neill\u2019s husband announced that she had completely redone the landscaping for their yard, a task that would have been impossible just months earlier. O\u2019Neill is also exercising every day for an hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cKim is a model patient. She represents everything I went into this field to help do. All of these issues were not just from her pacemaker. They had an impact on the way the heart functions and the way the valve works. She is not lying in bed or sitting on the porch all day. She is doing what she wants to do. A lot of what we do is restore quality of life,\u201d said Hariharan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For more than two months, Kim O\u2019Neill, 61, spent nearly every night lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if she was going to die in her sleep. Her heart was beating so loudly in her chest she thought it might explode. During the day, she would struggle to walk up a flight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[451,63,10],"yoast_head":"\n