Be Still My Heart: part 1

Carly has had a heart condition called supraventricular tachycardia since 6th grade.  It was very frightening when it started.  All we knew was that from time to time her heart would start beating incredibly fast, so fast you couldn't count the beats per minute. While it happened, it made her feel lightheaded and fatigued but when it was over she recovered pretty quickly.  She might feel a little tired for a while afterward but not terrible.

We went to our Pediatrician and started asking questions.  He did a LOT of different tests.  She had an EKG, blood tests,  a 24 hour urine collection test, (can't remember what that was even all about....) she wore a Holter monitor 2 different times for 2-3 weeks at a time.  We were never able to catch an episode on the monitor.  It was frustrating.  Our Pediatrician had no real answers for us after all this so he referred us to a Pediatric Cardiologist.

Her name was Dr. Susan Etheridge.  She is so great.  She is one of those doctors who makes you feel comfortable right away.  "Call me Susan" and talks to you not at you.  We found out what was happening.  SVT.  They don't really know why it happens but it is fairly common in teenage girls and while they don't know for sure, they think it is caused by hormones.  Usually girls grow out of it as they mature, in their early 20's.

Dr. Etheridge drew us pictures of the heart and how the electrical pathways moved through it, and how they sometimes get off balance, causing the rapid heartbeat as they try to catch up & reset themselves.  She answered all of our questions, even those we didn't know we had...  She explained that there was a medication available but she didnt' think it was very effective and therefore worth the possible side effects.  She told us about a surgical procedure called Cardial ablation that could solve the problem, the risk was low but her advice "If the condition is not affecting your life and keeping you from living how you want to live, it's not worth even that tiniest bit of risk"  This seemed to make sense to us and we didn't really consider either of the options, choosing to live with it and see how it progressed.  The episodes were uncomfortable and annoying but not really affecting how she lived her life.  Knowing that the episodes were not causing any damage was very reassuring.

Fast forward 6 years to now....
The SVT episodes continued to happen over her junior high and high school years.   They seemed to have no common precursor.  Sometimes they happened when she was active and sometimes they happened at rest.  They lasted anywhere from a few seconds to 30 minutes and sometimes occurred a few weeks apart but very often months apart until this past year............