DOCTORS CHECKED ON MY HEART WITHOUT ME LEAVING THE HOUSE
Gavin Redhead, 57, a retired council advocate for vulnerable young people, lives with his wife Julie, 51, a local government officer, in Lancashire. he has heart failure and benefits from nhS remote monitoring. he says: I WAS born with a hole in my heart and grew up being told there could be no running, no overexertion.
Still, I became a Sea Cadet, left school and met my wife Julie and worked for the local authority for years. But my heart problem was always there. I saw consultants every six months for monitoring but it was an arduous two-hour journey each way into Manchester.
In 2009 I developed arrhythmia — an irregular heartbeat. I was fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) which monitors the heart’s rhythm, paces it and shocks the heart back into normal rhythm if it stops.
It monitors remotely and data is sent to consultants while I carry on with my life. The small matchbox-shaped device implanted under the skin by my heart is linked wirelessly to a handset with which I can trigger a download of information to send on. Doctors can access it, too.
I saw the consultant every 12 months instead of six. In 2016, he told me that the device had picked up an erratic heartbeat and the ICD had prepared to shock me but went back to a normal rhythm before it fired. I had no recollection of it — but it could have saved my life.
Sadly my heart condition worsened. One night, I got to bed and felt very unwell. I couldn’t even call for Julie so I texted her. She called 999.
In hospital I was told I had irreversible damage and my heart would eventually fail. I was given about eight tablets, including ACE inhibitors that relax blood vessels and ease the pressure on the heart; beta blockers, which block adrenaline, as well as MRAs to stop the build-up of fluid, linked with heart failure.
Doctors feared I’d need a heart transplant but decided that, thanks to my ICD, I could carry on living normally as the remote monitoring would reveal when more urgent help was needed.
I gave up work in 2019 due to fatigue. Now I’m a patient advocate with the Pumping Marvellous charity, helping others with heart failure.
I may still need a heart transplant one day. But remote monitoring has saved my life. Without it, I’d be terrified wondering when my heart might stop, or start beating irregularly. Instead I can enjoy the time I have with my family.