My husband, John, and I were away for the weekend last December when we got the message that our 16-year-old son, Matthew, was very unwell in hospital. When we heard there was a problem with his heart, we rushed from Sligo to Letterkenny General Hospital fearing the worst.
Matthew, a perfectly healthy teenager with no history of heart problems, had been at home when he started to feel unwell. He could feel his heart pounding really fast, he felt cold and really ill. He drove himself six miles to the Now Doc out-of-hours GP service where a GP did an ECG on him and found his heart was racing out of control.
I thoroughly believe that doctor saved Matthew’s life and we have been back to thank him since. The normal resting heart rate is about 60-100 beats per minute and Matthew’s was over 300 a minute that night. The GP took it upon himself to use a defibrillator on Matthew, and rushed him to hospital.
He was taken by ambulance from Letterkenny to University Hospital Galway on Sunday, December 22nd, and admitted to the coronary care unit there. Nobody knew what was wrong with Matthew at that stage but they knew it was something serious.
We heard Sudden Adult Death Syndrome mentioned and we knew how serious that was. We were terrified. He was hooked up to so many machines and he wasn’t allowed outside the ward, so we knew he was very unwell.
Matthew was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a heart condition in which there is an abnormal extra electrical pathway of the heart, which is associated with sudden cardiac death in the young. Normally, electrical signals in the heart go through a certain pathway that helps the heart beat regularly. In people with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, some of the heart’s electrical signal goes down an extra pathway and this may cause a very rapid heart rate.
No major surgery
Matthew was born with this condition which, fortunately, is very treatable and he did not require major surgery. We were told by the cardiologist treating Matthew that he would have to be sent to Dublin for a catheter ablation procedure that would involve inserting a tube into an artery near his groin up to his heart area and destroying the abnormal pathway by radio frequency.
However, as it was the day before Christmas Eve, there was no one available to do the procedure until the following week so we had no choice but to stay in Galway and wait anxiously. John and I had never even been in Galway before and we booked a B&B for our first night.
The minute we landed in the coronary care unit at UHG, a member of staff asked us if we had accommodation sorted out. We said we had a B&B booked for that night and she told us not to make any further arrangements until the next day, as she was going to try to sort something out for us.
The next day, she told us she had accommodation arranged for us and we were to meet Neil Johnson, the chief executive of the heart charity Croí, that evening at the Courtyard apartments at Croí House, a 10-minute walk from the hospital. The apartments are available free of charge to enable family members to stay close to patients who are in hospital for cardiac or stroke care.
When we arrived there, we couldn’t believe our luck that such a place was available when we were going through such torment. It was unreal; it had absolutely everything we could have needed. There was even bread, milk, cheese and eggs left there for us. There was a microwave and oven so we could cook, and a laundry room where we could wash and dry our clothes. We were both out of work at the time and we thought we had Christmas sorted out, so having to pay for accommodation in Galway for 11 nights would have been a huge expense for us.
Layman’s terms
Johnson sat down with us and explained Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome in simple, layman’s terms, which was so helpful. As it was Christmas, the apartments were quiet and he offered us another apartment to bring our other four children down from Donegal to spend Christmas with us, but we decided it was best to leave them at home with family while we focused all our attention on Matthew.
It was hard for Matthew as he had no choice but to sit in bed and wait until Christmas was over before he could go to Dublin for his treatment.
Neil and his wife even cooked myself and John dinner on Christmas Day. They couldn’t do enough for us. The support we got was so amazing. It was great to meet somebody who was so dedicated to the cause they worked for and who believed in it so much. We held a raffle in Donegal during the summer to raise funds for the charity and try to give something back.
Matthew’s ablation procedure was a success and he has not looked back since. He is back to doing everything he did before his illness and has been told by his cardiologist that his condition has been cured. This Christmas will be a particularly special one for our family and we are all looking forward to celebrating it together this year.
In conversation with
Croí: The heart and stroke charity The heart and stroke charity Croí has been to the forefront in the fight against heart disease and stroke in the west of Ireland since 1985. The Heart and Stroke Centre at Croí House, which opened in 2012, is dedicated to prevention, recovery, health and wellbeing, and patients and family support.
There is a large exercise and fitness centre with specially trained staff to work with people at risk of, or recovering from, heart and stroke events. The team at the centre also deliver lifesaving courses in CPR, defibrillation, stroke recognition and choking resuscitation to a wide variety of groups, from allied healthcare professionals and community groups through to mum and toddler groups.
There are three self-contained accommodation units onsite where families in need may stay while a loved one is undergoing surgery or receiving stroke or coronary care.
Each unit has a large double bedroom, a kitchen-cum-living room, and its own private entrance.
