Wendy Davis was a healthy runner in her late twenties when she experienced a sudden heart failure for the first time which led to her being implanted with a ...
Cardio
27th January 2023
Wendy Davis was a healthy runner in her late twenties when she experienced a sudden heart failure for the first time which led to her being implanted with a pacemaker. Some years later her 8-year-old son had to save her ...
11th October 2022
Anita Tucker was 31 with a one-year-old baby when medical technology flagged that she needed a pacemaker. A few years later, med tech came to her aid again, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Now 46, Anita has not only been ...
28th September 2021
Fitness enthusiast Robyn Cairney was shocked when a cough during exercise led doctors to discover a serious heart condition at age 17. “I was doing some fitness tests at college and after the mile run, I was coughing. It was something ...
29th September 2020
Despite an overwhelming diagnosis, David Stott returned to enjoying life, family time and staying fit, all while helping others with the same condition – the epitome of today’s World Heart Day message, ‘Use Heart … for society, your loved ones and ...
14th September 2020
When Dan Gay found out that he had a faulty heart valve, he faced the biggest challenge of his life: giving up basketball. The professional basketball player was competing at the World Championships when he collapsed on the court. “They ...
25th August 2020
For Katharina Bauer pole vaulting is her life’s passion — or as she says, “her big love.” The sport of pole vaulting is not for the faint of heart. Competitors sprint down a track and launch themselves into the air, ...
29th June 2020
“I didn't actually realise I had a health problem until I was about seven years old, when my mum told me I had to have an operation on my heart,” says Simone Gomes. This was devastating and confusing. “Even though ...
17th February 2020
Pádraig Ó Céidigh had recently been given a clean bill of health and led a healthy lifestyle, so when he began experiencing chest pain, ‘heart attack’ didn’t even enter his thoughts. “I’d gone to the gym at ...
24th September 2019
Anneliese Kopp was always determined to live a full life. Just a few weeks short of her 85th birthday, after 40 years living in Hersel, Germany, she makes it clear that she is a woman of few regrets. ‘I’ve had ...
22nd July 2019
Marianella is a 38-year-old editor and a keen athlete from Costa Rica. In January 2015, she woke up with a terrible headache, but managed to go to work. Around midday her headache retuned with such force that it knocked her out. ‘...
4th July 2019
At age 84, Gerry Phelan thought his breathlessness and fatigue were part of the ageing process, but the symptoms were due to a serious heart condition. Gerry had always been an active man, even after undergoing triple bypass surgery in 2005. However, ...
24th June 2019
Atrial Fibrillation affects millions of lives everywhere around the Globe. Nina Lapshinova, 71 years old patient from Russia, couldn’t think of anything but her disease until she was advised to go through minimally invasive catheter ablation. “It was not about ...
22nd November 2018
Former marathon runner, Martin Taylor, was left frustrated and low when Atrial Fibrillation (AF) stopped him in his tracks. But a minimally invasive medical procedure has ensured he’s back to pounding the pavements. “I have an office job, I ...
29th September 2018
When Brenda Walker learned that she had a high-risk heart condition at 77, she wasn’t about to let it get in the way of completing her PhD. A minimally invasive medical procedure made it possible to continue her studies uninterrupted ...
6th June 2018
In February 2016, during a routine examination, Angela Jaschke (82) was diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis. Calcification of her aortic valve was so severe that only a 3mm wide opening was left. She was given a new heart valve using the minimally ...
22nd May 2018
When Peter Robinson was diagnosed with a faulty heart valve, he was told he had little chance of survival. Normally a very active 60-year-old, Peter knew something was wrong when he could barely walk a few steps without stopping to ...
17th May 2018
Did you know that only half of people with high blood pressure are aware of it? Bettina Wallace was one of those people until she collapsed during her daily commute. “I was on the train home with my colleague and ...
28th September 2017
Many think that heart problems are exclusively an affliction of older people, but cardiovascular disease can affect younger adults and children, too. Fortunately, medical technology can help heart patients live full lives. Although it’s true that aging as well ...
3rd August 2017
Ulf Lohmann was frustrated that chronic high blood pressure had taken over his life. Then doctors offered him an innovative new treatment that completely turned things around. For years Ulf was taking pills that didn’t seem to have any ...
13th July 2017
When 76-year-old Maria Sugliano had the chance to be the first person to try a new technology for her heart failure, she didn’t hesitate to accept. Four years later, Maria is happy to share the story of what she ...
6th July 2017
Erica’s life literally changed overnight. One day, the 38-year-old mother of four was playing in a tennis championship at her local club and the next day, she was having a heart attack. “I had no health problems. I had ...
28th February 2017
Rare diseases are tricky. Just ask Becky Scheffe, who waited 20 years to get a proper diagnosis for her Long QT syndrome, a heart condition that only affects about one in 7,000 people. It all started when Becky was 17. “I had a ...
28th September 2016
Replica heart sparked surgical breakthrough – could doctors print living organs next? Her parents hoped she had asthma. Little Mia was often out of breath and picked up respiratory infections often than other children – coughs, colds and even pneumonia. But while ...
16th June 2016
When a valve in Katja Jensen’s heart stopped working properly, doctors said surgery would be too risky. But doing nothing wasn’t an option, either. Katja found out that her aortic valve had narrowed to one-third of its normal ...
31st March 2016
A nine-year-old girl from Bangladesh needs a €5,000 heart operation but her family’s income is just €70 per month. Now a charity is stepping in to provide less-invasive surgery – for free Fima has a hole in her heart. It causes palpitations ...
27th January 2016
Mike Higginbottom blamed his struggles with exercise on being unfit…until his heart stopped beating one day at the gym. “Apparently I pirouetted off the cross trainer, fell on my back and hit my head. I was out like a ...
9th December 2015
Daniel Titley found a way to show his gratitude 23 years after receiving a donor heart from 14-year-old Stephen Norris, who’d lost his life in a bike accident. Unfortunately, he couldn’t thank Stephen himself, so he did the next ...
5th November 2015
Max Page is only ten years old, but he could give the Jedi Knights a run for their money despite the rare heart condition that he’s had since birth. The American actor, who rose to fame after he portrayed ...
27th October 2015
What are the deadliest diseases in Africa? HIV/AIDS and malaria, right? Surprising as it might be, cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death for people over 30 in African countries. In Cameroon this problem is real. But another ...
28th September 2015
What do you do if your three-year-old gets tired after walking just one block and almost faints and turns purple when crying? Cynthia had these symptoms because she was letting out large amounts of blood through a small hole in ...
2nd April 2015
Jill Bolte Taylor woke one morning with a pounding pain behind her left eye. It was like the pain you get when you bite into ice-cream. 'It just gripped me and then released me; gripped me and released me.' ...
5th March 2015
We all know the risk factors for heart disease. Diabetes, high blood pressure, family history, smoking, etc. If we don’t have those issues we try to feel relieved. But in the back of our minds we remember the story ...
11th February 2015
Nothing can prepare you for the distressing news that your baby has a life-threatening heart defect. Even more frightening is finding out that the doctors missed it and sent your newborn home with a clean bill of health. This is ...
29th October 2014
When Maria was told that she needed a pacemaker she had no idea what that word meant. “I was six years old, so I did not understand very well what I needed it for”. At the age of twenty, Maria ...
15th September 2014
“If a plumber can do it with pipes, we can do it with blood vessels.” That’s the simple starting point for an idea that opened the door to half a decade of successful surgeries for an estimated 60 million survivors ...