Heart condition can’t stop 5th grader

Braden Renner: Rare heart condition can’t stop sports, drama enthusiast

MUNNSVILLE » Valentine’s Day has long since come and gone, but red heart cutouts still adorn the wall in Braden Renner’s bedroom. They are likely to stay for some time to come, because those paper hearts -- given to the Stockbridge Valley Elementary School fifth-grader by classmates and friends -- show the love and support of his peers during a recent procedure to ease an unusually rapid heartbeat.

An active athlete with a particular liking for basketball and baseball, as well as X-Box games like “Fortnite” in his down time, Braden recalled he was just done playing a soccer game in Madison in October 2015 when the family stopped at Quack’s Village Inn Restaurant. There, he experienced the symptoms for the very first time -- his heart started racing, and he wasn’t really sure what was going on. After it happened a couple more times, he went to the pediatrician that November, and was scheduled for an appointment with a cardiologist the following February.

But thenhewasplaying basketball at the Community Ac- tivity Center in Sherrill in midJanuary 2016, and didn’t even finish the game as the rapid heartbeat returned.

“I thought I was going to pass out,” Braden remembered. “I had to run off the court.”

His heartbeat during this episode reached 260 beats per minute.

His parents Jaime and Rob Renner took him to Oneida Healthcare, where they got him right in and calmed him down and applied an ice pack to his head. Then Braden went on to Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital aboard an ambulance, right in the midst of a blizzard, Jaime said.

His doctor came in to the room there, and explained to him exactly what was going on, in terms thatBradensaidhe could understand. He was told he had supraventricular tachycardia, which is an abnormally fast heartbeat, rising above the normal60to100beatsperminute. It happens when electrical impulses coordinating the heartbeat don’t work properly. It feels like a racingorfluttering heart when it occurs, and for people with only rare episodes it doesn’t pose much of a challenge to a normal, healthy life. But others require treatment to correct the situation.

Braden was then diagnosed

It feels like a racingor fluttering heart whenitoccurs, andfor peoplewith only rare episodes it doesn’t pose much of a challenge toanormal, healthy life. But others require treatment to correct the situation.

PHOTOS SPECIAL TO THE DISPATCH BY MIKE JAQUAYS Braden Renner holds a “Heart Hero” bear his grandmother had made for him, posing in front of a wall decorated with paper hearts from his friends, on March 24at his home in Munnsville.

Stockbridge Valley Elementary School fifth-grader Braden Renner holds the apparatus used during his heart ablation last month while describing the procedure on March 24at his Munnsville home.