August 14, 2024 • 14 mins
A young 20-something nurse, former goaltender at Wright State University, felt the symptoms but brushed them off. Then one night on the job, the pain led to connect herself to a heart monitor and what she saw was a real problem. Meet Jessika Seward and a heart specialist from Medtronic, Dr. Robert Kowal, here to share her frightening experience, answering questions about this life-saving device, and how proud Jessika is now living with a pacemaker.
Click here for a peek at Jessika's time at WSU soccer.
Click here to read more from Dr. Robert Kowal on heart issues.
Click here for a peek at Jessika's time at WSU soccer.
Click here to read more from Dr. Robert Kowal on heart issues.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is iHeart Sinsey, a Tri state public affairs program.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm Sandy Collins.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
My next guests are here to discuss a life changing
event for a local woman. And we'll meet the doctor
whose company creates and makes medical devices and therapies that
help patients get the best outcomes. Doctor Robert Cowell is
a heart specialist and works with Medtronic, which makes medical
devices that sustain and save lives. And Jessica Seward lives
(00:25):
in the Dayton area. She is going to share her
amazing medical emergency. Doctor Cowell and Jessica, Welcome to iHeart Cincy.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Jessica, you're from Florida originally.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, I am for Florida, and then you came up
to the Wright State to become a nurse.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yep? I played college soccer there, so I got a
scholarship to play soccer.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And you were quite a player, and you have the
hardest job on the soccer field and as a goalie.
Totally healthy young woman doing your thing, got your nursing degree,
and then what you got gobsmacked with this issue?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
So I was at work one night and it was
probably like three o'clock in the morning, and I started
having really intense, like chest pain, and at first I
just kind of like brushed it off and was like, oh,
like nothing to worry about. And then probably after like
thirty minutes, one of my coworkers was like, you definitely
should get that checked out, and I was like, I
don't feel like I need to go to the er.
So I ended up like hooking myself up to the
(01:23):
monitor in one of the empty rooms, and when my
like rhythm came across the screen, me and two of
the coworkers were in the room, and all of our
jawls just kind of dropped, and I knew that it
wasn't good when I saw the rhythm, and we both looked.
Me and one of my coworkers looked at each other
and I was like, I think I'm going to go
to the er. She was like, I think that's a
good idea. So I went ahead and just like grabbed
(01:44):
myself and I walked down to the er.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You're a cardiac nurse, is that correct? Yes, so you
er even more attuned to what that EKG.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Told you.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So you went down there and you found out that
your heart rhythm was off. What happened after that?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, So they went ahead and did like the twelve
lead EKG, so that's going to show you like the
best image versus just having being hooked up to like
a monitor, and it showed that I was in a
two to one conduction block, which is not good. And
at that point they couldn't really like they were trying
to figure out if it was if there was a
certain condition that was causing the delay in my conduction system.
(02:23):
So I went ahead and went and saw a specialist
after that down in Cincinnati, and we did a whole
bunch of testing. He started out with an EP study,
which is kind of similar to like a heart CAF
but they basically go in and they try to map
out your electrical system within your heart. If I'm incorrect,
doctor cow, please correct me. And the goal of that
(02:46):
was he was thinking that he could do an ablation
to fix my conduction issue, but that was not the case.
So after that they ended up admitting me at the
hospital and they did a.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
CT scan, a.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Stress test, every test that you can think of, an echo.
They did all of it to try and figure out
what could have been causing it, and they couldn't really
find anything because sometimes like lime disease can sell your
conduction down or different conditions like that. But everything came
back negative. So the next step was a pacemaker.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So all this went on, when what was the timeframe?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So I went and had my EP studied downe on
August second.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Of which year, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
They admitted me. After my study, which was at like
nine am, and then the next morning, on the third,
I had all the testing done before twelve o'clock, and
then at one o'clock they came in and said, we
have an opening in the r in an hour. If
you want to go ahead and go forward with a pacemaker.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Oh my gosh, let's do it. Really you were that?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I mean I know that you were initially concerned about
being so young and having a pacemaker. That was part
of your decision making process, but you were willing to
just jump right in.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
So before I had my EP study, I was like
very against. I was like, that's the last thing that you're.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Going to do.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
But I was also pretty naive to how impressive they
are and what all they are actually capable of doing.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
You talked about the pacemaker, now, yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
After my EP study, once everything started coming back negative,
I kind of had a gut feeling that I knew
that everything was going to be negative. So we were
only waiting on one test result, which was the lime disease,
and I knew that that was probably going to be negative.
So when they said they had an opening, I was like,
let's just go ahead and do it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Was it an outpatient procedure.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
No, So they ended up keeping me overnight because in
the morning they do like the lead placement check, just
to verify everything's in the right spot, and then the
Medtronic rep will come and interrogate the pacemaker and make
sure everything looks good before you leave and go wow.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So that's where your doctor, Robert call comes in from Medtronic.
The cardiac electro physiologist. Tell me a little bit about
that field and how it came to Medatronic.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Great thing, So I came. We been trying about seven
years ago, but prior to that, for almost twenty years,
I was in this sub specially of cardiology, and simply put,
it's all about the heart rhythm. So we deal with
people whose heart race are too slow like Jessica's too fast,
where those can be life threatening or irregular, which is
(05:19):
atual fibrillation. Which is another heart rhythm disorder that we
see in people.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And why does this happen so for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
So when you look at someone like Jessica who had
a slow heart rate, where the signals that stimulate the
heart to beat are not working normally, it can happen
for a lot of reasons. Most commonly it is a
byproduct of aging, and that's why it throws people for
a loop when someone her age suddenly comes in with
these problems. But there are other more odd and rare
(05:52):
causes lime diseases, one which happens to be reversible, and
there's even more rare versions where people are born with
what's called heart block.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
How has the pacemaker improved in the last ten years?
What have you done to Is it smaller, is it more?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, reliable, it's a great question. So you know when
pacers started, go back forty to fifty years, they were
the size of a hockey puck. Now and pacemaker like
Jessica's is the size of an Oreo cookie, one tenth
the size. In the last ten years we've and through
that has also been longer battery life, so you don't
(06:30):
have to go back and revise them, Like I said,
smaller more. The reliability is very very high. And then
in the last ten years we've seen two things emerge.
One is even dropping the size another tenfold. For a
specific type of pacemaker called a leadless device means that
(06:51):
it sits entirely in the heart. That's not what Jessica has.
It's for a subset of people who have a certain need.
And then there's the one that she got where the
pacer itself sits in the chest with wires in the heart,
but those wires are now placed in a specific location
that re establishes the most normal type of heartbeat. Jessica
(07:14):
referred to this thing called the conduction system the heart.
The heart conduction system is like the spark clubs of
a car motor, so that you know the heart is
beating at the right rate, but it also does so
in a way that makes it the most coordinated among
the heart's chambers. And this type of pacemaker does both
very well. It allows the heart to beat at the
(07:37):
rate that Jessica needs, and it allows the heart chambers
to all beat in the most coordinated fashion possible.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Jessica, how soon after you had the pacemaker installed did
you feel the difference.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I would say within the first couple of weeks before
I had my pacemaker, I had some pretty significant symptoms
that I kind of just brush under the ug My
hands on my feet would go numb. Anytime that I
was like active, I would frequently be short of breath.
I was always super tired, and all of that has
like changed dramatically.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So you thought that those were maybe indications of something else.
Maybe you were tired, you were now working as a nurse,
you were not playing soccer, or maybe is that is
that what you did?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, I think that, But I also think part of
it was just kind of like out of sight, out
of mind. When you think something might be wrong, it's
kind of scary to like get it checked out, which
is kind of why I've used this as a tool
to help educate other people. It's kind of been a
great way to help inform other people that when you
think something's wrong, to get it checked out, because I
(08:46):
could be in a very different situation if I wouldn't
have gone.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
To the doctor.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I do want to find out about what would have
happened if you didn't have it done. But first let
me ask you, are you aware of it?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Do you feel it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Does it bother you at all to have this implement
in your chest?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, it's actually very reassuring knowing that I have it,
because it's something that I know will always keep my
heart like regulated and it's like I don't have to
think like is my heart going to beat irregularly or
is it going to slow down too slow? So it's
definitely reassuring to have. I'm honestly like proud to have it.
It's nothing that I'm embarrassed about. It did take a
(09:23):
little bit to get there, but I'm very grateful that
I do have it.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I was going to ask if you needed any sort
of maintenance, have it replaced or serviced, And I got
a clue there from the doctor that this should last
fifteen some years.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
What will happen.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
After that time period, is that the battery going out
or what is she going to have to have done
when the life of this pacemaker is over?
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yeah, so it's pretty simple. You basically make it a
small decision over the device, unscrew it from the existing
wires and put a new device onto those wires, and
then just suck your closed.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
And the other interesting thing is along the way, because
these are smart devices that can communicate. As Jessica alluded to,
we with programmers can actually see what's going on, and
she through her cell phone can send her physicians information
that tell them, hey, the devices working, just find don't worry,
(10:25):
or it can also tell them other information about how
she's doing right.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Health standpoint, let me ask you that what could have
happened if she hadn't had this done, if she didn't
recognize the symptoms and get some help.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, I know, it's a great question. And these slow
heart rates can manifest in a lot of different ways,
and on this on the mild end, it can just
be like I just don't have the pet climbing upstairs,
for example, or I'm tired at rest. To the other
end is people can pass out if the heart rate
is too slow. You know, you can actually lose consciousness,
and you can imagine if you're driving a car and
(11:00):
that happens, be catastrophic. And so one of the things
that's so hard that Jessica's story illustrates is it can
be hard to figure out what's going on, particularly in
a young person, when you don't expect a rhythm problem,
because the symptoms can be so vague. So, you know,
I think the other piece of this story is Jessica's
(11:21):
persistence of like, Hey, I'm not feeling well and I'm
not getting the answers and we're not figuring out, and
I got to keep going until we figure this out.
And so I think that kind of agency of self
advocacy is it really.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Important, Jessica. He just kind of prompted me to ask
this question.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Did you get pushed back from any doctors thinking that
perhaps what you were feeling wasn't based in anything medical.
Did they do what they do a lot of times
to young women as oh, you know, you're fine, don't
worry about it, gome or was it a constant every
doctor took you seriously and and got you to where
(12:01):
you needed to be.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
There is a little bit of pushback, but I think
that's to be expected when somebody's twenty three, twenty two
years old going and has something like I had. But
once I got to like the doctors that I'm currently seeing,
they were amazing. They took everything that I said seriously
and they were super on the ball about trying to
figure out what the problem was.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
So, doctor, what's the bottom line here?
Speaker 1 (12:27):
What is the final message that you want to send,
and then we'll end up with Jessica with what her
final thoughts are.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
You know, again, I think you said before sometimes, you know,
these kind of rhythm problems can show up in funny ways,
and sometimes they start mild and get more serious, and
time sometimes reveals what's going on. But the key is
when you're not feeling well, regardless of the medical condition,
you know, keep up, keep pursuing, be an advocate for yourself.
(12:52):
I think the second thing is I think one thing
we're particularly proud at a Medtronic is we don't kind
of rest on this step quo. We hope that by
the time Jessica needs a new pacer in fifteen years,
we're going to have something so much better and so
much more advanced. And like you said in your question earlier,
(13:13):
pacing is substanutely the different even ten years ago. This
is even though this is a sixty five year old
space in medicine, and we're going to continue to advance,
and people like Jessica are the reason why we do it.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
That must feel good, Jessica.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It does, and it's been a great way to help
educate other people on the importance of going to the
doctor and just advocating for yourself in general.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Well, Jessica and doctor cal thank you so much for
sharing this story. Want to encourage anybody who's not feeling
well talk to your doctor and get the answers that
you need.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Thank you, Sanny.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Thank you so Before we go, just a quick note,
if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, just email me.
Iheartsincy at iHeartMedia dot com. That's iHeart Sincy at iHeartMedia
dot com. All the shows are on the free iHeartRadio
app available in your app store even on your smart TV.
(14:08):
Look under the podcast section for this show Iheartsincy. There
you can listen and share episodes with your family and friends.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Thanks for listening. I'm Sandy Collins.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
iHeart Cincy is a production of iHeartMedia, Cincinnati.
This is iHeart Sinsey, a Tri state public affairs program.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm Sandy Collins.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
My next guests are here to discuss a life changing
event for a local woman. And we'll meet the doctor
whose company creates and makes medical devices and therapies that
help patients get the best outcomes. Doctor Robert Cowell is
a heart specialist and works with Medtronic, which makes medical
devices that sustain and save lives. And Jessica Seward lives
(00:25):
in the Dayton area. She is going to share her
amazing medical emergency. Doctor Cowell and Jessica, Welcome to iHeart Cincy.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Jessica, you're from Florida originally.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, I am for Florida, and then you came up
to the Wright State to become a nurse.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yep? I played college soccer there, so I got a
scholarship to play soccer.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And you were quite a player, and you have the
hardest job on the soccer field and as a goalie.
Totally healthy young woman doing your thing, got your nursing degree,
and then what you got gobsmacked with this issue?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
So I was at work one night and it was
probably like three o'clock in the morning, and I started
having really intense, like chest pain, and at first I
just kind of like brushed it off and was like, oh,
like nothing to worry about. And then probably after like
thirty minutes, one of my coworkers was like, you definitely
should get that checked out, and I was like, I
don't feel like I need to go to the er.
So I ended up like hooking myself up to the
(01:23):
monitor in one of the empty rooms, and when my
like rhythm came across the screen, me and two of
the coworkers were in the room, and all of our
jawls just kind of dropped, and I knew that it
wasn't good when I saw the rhythm, and we both looked.
Me and one of my coworkers looked at each other
and I was like, I think I'm going to go
to the er. She was like, I think that's a
good idea. So I went ahead and just like grabbed
(01:44):
myself and I walked down to the er.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You're a cardiac nurse, is that correct? Yes, so you
er even more attuned to what that EKG.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Told you.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So you went down there and you found out that
your heart rhythm was off. What happened after that?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, So they went ahead and did like the twelve
lead EKG, so that's going to show you like the
best image versus just having being hooked up to like
a monitor, and it showed that I was in a
two to one conduction block, which is not good. And
at that point they couldn't really like they were trying
to figure out if it was if there was a
certain condition that was causing the delay in my conduction system.
(02:23):
So I went ahead and went and saw a specialist
after that down in Cincinnati, and we did a whole
bunch of testing. He started out with an EP study,
which is kind of similar to like a heart CAF
but they basically go in and they try to map
out your electrical system within your heart. If I'm incorrect,
doctor cow, please correct me. And the goal of that
(02:46):
was he was thinking that he could do an ablation
to fix my conduction issue, but that was not the case.
So after that they ended up admitting me at the
hospital and they did a.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
CT scan, a.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Stress test, every test that you can think of, an echo.
They did all of it to try and figure out
what could have been causing it, and they couldn't really
find anything because sometimes like lime disease can sell your
conduction down or different conditions like that. But everything came
back negative. So the next step was a pacemaker.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So all this went on, when what was the timeframe?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So I went and had my EP studied downe on
August second.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Of which year, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
They admitted me. After my study, which was at like
nine am, and then the next morning, on the third,
I had all the testing done before twelve o'clock, and
then at one o'clock they came in and said, we
have an opening in the r in an hour. If
you want to go ahead and go forward with a pacemaker.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Oh my gosh, let's do it. Really you were that?
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I mean I know that you were initially concerned about
being so young and having a pacemaker. That was part
of your decision making process, but you were willing to
just jump right in.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
So before I had my EP study, I was like
very against. I was like, that's the last thing that you're.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Going to do.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
But I was also pretty naive to how impressive they
are and what all they are actually capable of doing.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
You talked about the pacemaker, now, yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
After my EP study, once everything started coming back negative,
I kind of had a gut feeling that I knew
that everything was going to be negative. So we were
only waiting on one test result, which was the lime disease,
and I knew that that was probably going to be negative.
So when they said they had an opening, I was like,
let's just go ahead and do it.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Was it an outpatient procedure.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
No, So they ended up keeping me overnight because in
the morning they do like the lead placement check, just
to verify everything's in the right spot, and then the
Medtronic rep will come and interrogate the pacemaker and make
sure everything looks good before you leave and go wow.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So that's where your doctor, Robert call comes in from Medtronic.
The cardiac electro physiologist. Tell me a little bit about
that field and how it came to Medatronic.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Great thing, So I came. We been trying about seven
years ago, but prior to that, for almost twenty years,
I was in this sub specially of cardiology, and simply put,
it's all about the heart rhythm. So we deal with
people whose heart race are too slow like Jessica's too fast,
where those can be life threatening or irregular, which is
(05:19):
atual fibrillation. Which is another heart rhythm disorder that we
see in people.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And why does this happen so for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
So when you look at someone like Jessica who had
a slow heart rate, where the signals that stimulate the
heart to beat are not working normally, it can happen
for a lot of reasons. Most commonly it is a
byproduct of aging, and that's why it throws people for
a loop when someone her age suddenly comes in with
these problems. But there are other more odd and rare
(05:52):
causes lime diseases, one which happens to be reversible, and
there's even more rare versions where people are born with
what's called heart block.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
How has the pacemaker improved in the last ten years?
What have you done to Is it smaller, is it more?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, reliable, it's a great question. So you know when
pacers started, go back forty to fifty years, they were
the size of a hockey puck. Now and pacemaker like
Jessica's is the size of an Oreo cookie, one tenth
the size. In the last ten years we've and through
that has also been longer battery life, so you don't
(06:30):
have to go back and revise them, Like I said,
smaller more. The reliability is very very high. And then
in the last ten years we've seen two things emerge.
One is even dropping the size another tenfold. For a
specific type of pacemaker called a leadless device means that
(06:51):
it sits entirely in the heart. That's not what Jessica has.
It's for a subset of people who have a certain need.
And then there's the one that she got where the
pacer itself sits in the chest with wires in the heart,
but those wires are now placed in a specific location
that re establishes the most normal type of heartbeat. Jessica
(07:14):
referred to this thing called the conduction system the heart.
The heart conduction system is like the spark clubs of
a car motor, so that you know the heart is
beating at the right rate, but it also does so
in a way that makes it the most coordinated among
the heart's chambers. And this type of pacemaker does both
very well. It allows the heart to beat at the
(07:37):
rate that Jessica needs, and it allows the heart chambers
to all beat in the most coordinated fashion possible.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Jessica, how soon after you had the pacemaker installed did
you feel the difference.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I would say within the first couple of weeks before
I had my pacemaker, I had some pretty significant symptoms
that I kind of just brush under the ug My
hands on my feet would go numb. Anytime that I
was like active, I would frequently be short of breath.
I was always super tired, and all of that has
like changed dramatically.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So you thought that those were maybe indications of something else.
Maybe you were tired, you were now working as a nurse,
you were not playing soccer, or maybe is that is
that what you did?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, I think that, But I also think part of
it was just kind of like out of sight, out
of mind. When you think something might be wrong, it's
kind of scary to like get it checked out, which
is kind of why I've used this as a tool
to help educate other people. It's kind of been a
great way to help inform other people that when you
think something's wrong, to get it checked out, because I
(08:46):
could be in a very different situation if I wouldn't
have gone.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
To the doctor.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I do want to find out about what would have
happened if you didn't have it done. But first let
me ask you, are you aware of it?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Do you feel it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Does it bother you at all to have this implement
in your chest?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, it's actually very reassuring knowing that I have it,
because it's something that I know will always keep my
heart like regulated and it's like I don't have to
think like is my heart going to beat irregularly or
is it going to slow down too slow? So it's
definitely reassuring to have. I'm honestly like proud to have it.
It's nothing that I'm embarrassed about. It did take a
(09:23):
little bit to get there, but I'm very grateful that
I do have it.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I was going to ask if you needed any sort
of maintenance, have it replaced or serviced, And I got
a clue there from the doctor that this should last
fifteen some years.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
What will happen.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
After that time period, is that the battery going out
or what is she going to have to have done
when the life of this pacemaker is over?
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yeah, so it's pretty simple. You basically make it a
small decision over the device, unscrew it from the existing
wires and put a new device onto those wires, and
then just suck your closed.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
And the other interesting thing is along the way, because
these are smart devices that can communicate. As Jessica alluded to,
we with programmers can actually see what's going on, and
she through her cell phone can send her physicians information
that tell them, hey, the devices working, just find don't worry,
(10:25):
or it can also tell them other information about how
she's doing right.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Health standpoint, let me ask you that what could have
happened if she hadn't had this done, if she didn't
recognize the symptoms and get some help.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, I know, it's a great question. And these slow
heart rates can manifest in a lot of different ways,
and on this on the mild end, it can just
be like I just don't have the pet climbing upstairs,
for example, or I'm tired at rest. To the other
end is people can pass out if the heart rate
is too slow. You know, you can actually lose consciousness,
and you can imagine if you're driving a car and
(11:00):
that happens, be catastrophic. And so one of the things
that's so hard that Jessica's story illustrates is it can
be hard to figure out what's going on, particularly in
a young person, when you don't expect a rhythm problem,
because the symptoms can be so vague. So, you know,
I think the other piece of this story is Jessica's
(11:21):
persistence of like, Hey, I'm not feeling well and I'm
not getting the answers and we're not figuring out, and
I got to keep going until we figure this out.
And so I think that kind of agency of self
advocacy is it really.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Important, Jessica. He just kind of prompted me to ask
this question.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Did you get pushed back from any doctors thinking that
perhaps what you were feeling wasn't based in anything medical.
Did they do what they do a lot of times
to young women as oh, you know, you're fine, don't
worry about it, gome or was it a constant every
doctor took you seriously and and got you to where
(12:01):
you needed to be.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
There is a little bit of pushback, but I think
that's to be expected when somebody's twenty three, twenty two
years old going and has something like I had. But
once I got to like the doctors that I'm currently seeing,
they were amazing. They took everything that I said seriously
and they were super on the ball about trying to
figure out what the problem was.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
So, doctor, what's the bottom line here?
Speaker 1 (12:27):
What is the final message that you want to send,
and then we'll end up with Jessica with what her
final thoughts are.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
You know, again, I think you said before sometimes, you know,
these kind of rhythm problems can show up in funny ways,
and sometimes they start mild and get more serious, and
time sometimes reveals what's going on. But the key is
when you're not feeling well, regardless of the medical condition,
you know, keep up, keep pursuing, be an advocate for yourself.
(12:52):
I think the second thing is I think one thing
we're particularly proud at a Medtronic is we don't kind
of rest on this step quo. We hope that by
the time Jessica needs a new pacer in fifteen years,
we're going to have something so much better and so
much more advanced. And like you said in your question earlier,
(13:13):
pacing is substanutely the different even ten years ago. This
is even though this is a sixty five year old
space in medicine, and we're going to continue to advance,
and people like Jessica are the reason why we do it.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
That must feel good, Jessica.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It does, and it's been a great way to help
educate other people on the importance of going to the
doctor and just advocating for yourself in general.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Well, Jessica and doctor cal thank you so much for
sharing this story. Want to encourage anybody who's not feeling
well talk to your doctor and get the answers that
you need.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Thank you, Sanny.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Thank you so Before we go, just a quick note,
if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, just email me.
Iheartsincy at iHeartMedia dot com. That's iHeart Sincy at iHeartMedia
dot com. All the shows are on the free iHeartRadio
app available in your app store even on your smart TV.
(14:08):
Look under the podcast section for this show Iheartsincy. There
you can listen and share episodes with your family and friends.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Thanks for listening. I'm Sandy Collins.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
iHeart Cincy is a production of iHeartMedia, Cincinnati.
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