Health Watch: how to fix a hole in the heart
GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – When Neenah’s Bruce Heckner woke up with searing pain and swelling in his bicep, he never could have imagined it was due to a birth defect in his heart he never even knew he had.
“I had no chest pain. It was just in my arm, but I knew there was something wrong,” Heckner recalled. “So, I woke up my wife and I said, ‘We need to go to the emergency room now!’ So, off we went.”
When Heckner got to the ER, however, he realized he wasn’t out of the woods by a long shot.
“They couldn’t get a pulse in my left arm because everything was blocked,” he said.
Medical Director of Structural Heart at Aurora BayCare Medical Center, Dr. Kristopher Selke described what was going on with Heckner.
“In his particular situation, he had a blood clot that went from the vein through that hole {in his heart} and ended up in the artery in his arm, which caused the arm to have lack of blood flow.”
That hole Selke is referring to is an atrial septal defect, or hole in the heart; a congenital heart defect Heckner had since birth and never even knew about.
“Atrial septal defects are commonly known as the most commonly missed diagnosis, meaning that oftentimes people will go all the way into adulthood, and nobody finds them,” Selke explained. “The reason they don’t find them is when they’re not causing problems, they don’t cause symptoms.”
What Heckner did know was what his father went through with heart surgery.
“I thought they were gonna cut me open and yeah, I was worried about it,” Heckner said. “I saw my dad have open-heart surgery, so I know the stitches and the staples and I I’m like, ‘Wow, this is kind of scary.’”
Fortunately, Selke had another option, the Abbott Amplatzer device. Using a model of a heart, Selke gave Heckner a demonstration.
“He actually showed me how it worked. He pushed it through the hole in the plastic heart and showed me how he turns it, and it plugs the hole on either side and then he just removes the wire out of my leg,” Heckner recalled. “I was so relieved because then you’ll be back to work in a couple days.”
Selke says the minimally invasive element is a big benefit of this procedure, requiring no more than an overnight hospital stay.
“We know concretely that his risk of stroke is reduced,” Selke said. “We know specifically his risk for any blood clots going through the heart and going to an artery again is decreased and his risk of heart failure is decreased as well. So that’s, from a prognostic standpoint, the best that we can have.”
Heckner still gets emotional realizing how close he came to not being able to enjoy his retirement in a few years. He can’t say enough about his positive experience with Dr. Selke, his team at Aurora BayCare and all who were involved in his recovery.
“It was good. God was on my side,” Heckner said. “I’m really strong in my faith and God’s got other plans for me.”
If you’d like to find out how healthy your heart is, take a heart risk assessment at: aurorabaycare.com/assessments.
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