It has been one heck of a ride and its not over yet. Sam went to Beaumont today to meet with Dr. Wong, Director Electrophysiology Research, to discuss the arrhythmia issues happening with his heart. Dr. Wong looked at his heart monitor records from the past 30 days along with reports from cardiac rehab and recommends Sam have a catheter ablation done on his heart. If the ablation is successful Sam can stop taking ALL of the medications (they have added up!) that are needed to keep his heart in a semi-normal state.
Dr. Wong feels this isn't associated with his recent heart surgery but something he may have been experiencing before surgery and just didn't notice due to his valves leaking so severely. Sam is classified as having paroxysmal superventricular tachycardia (say that 10x fast)! This is when his heart's electrical system causes his heart to beat very fast and cause other abnormal arrhythmia's.
(Instrument used to ablate the heart muscle)
Statics show that your first ablation is 90% successful and sometimes a second or third ablation is needed to fully correct the arrhythmia issues. When the catheter ablation is done they go in through a vein in his leg and induce his heart into its abnormal rhythm (see photo above of the instrument used)- whether that be atrial flutter/fibrillation or both. Once they see the abnormal rhythm they will destroy the abnormal pathway. (see image below)
Since Sam has had trauma to his heart with his recent surgery Dr. Wong feels Sam should stay the night in the hospital to be observed and take 2 days to lay low so his vein can heal from the catheter.
Ironically Sam's appointment was pushed up from the end of April and is on Thursday with U of M's Dr. Aman Chugh to discuss these issues. We will give an update on that appointment and try and get something scheduled in the next couple months either at Beaumont or UofM.
