I’ve always been a go-getter, but 10 years ago, I started having heart murmurs. Arrhythmia is the term I had always heard. Atrial fibrillation was the actual diagnosis.

It made it hard for me to do things. Walking upstairs? Forget it. It was serious. From the time my feet hit the ground in the morning until the time I went to bed, I was out of breath and exhausted.

The doctors put me on some medication to help stabilize things, but they stopped working about four years ago. About that time, our son Dru came into our lives. My afib had gotten so bad, it was almost impossible to care for my baby. Can you imagine the excitement of being a new mom and not having the strength to take care of his day-to-day needs?

That’s when I decided to go see the heart specialists at UVA. They told me I needed surgery. But that was the last thing I wanted to hear.

I just wanted to get better, but the thought of surgery scared me. Plus, we had just built a new house. There was just no way we could afford it. It felt like being between a rock and a hard place.

But Dr. Mangrum had an idea. An option for me when I thought I had no options. He suggested this clinical trial that could help me avoid open-heart surgery, the expenses of such a procedure and the recovery time that goes along with it. We applied to be a part of the study, received a grant and scheduled the surgery.

I had no idea it would be so simple. It was a catheter ablation procedure. Minimally invasive is how they describe it. All I know is that I was able to go home the next day.

My brother also suffers from atrial fibrillation. When I got such good results from my procedures, I started trying to convince him that he needed to have the procedure done, too. It’s amazing how much better I feel and how I can do the things I love again.

My husband and I are back out on the golf course and we take Dru swimming as often as we can. I now have my energy and my health back. The heart murmurs that I had lived with for 10 years are gone. I only wish I had found out about UVA sooner.