Story by: Crystal Hammon on February 11, 2019
After 10 years of trying for a second child, Amanda Slayton and her husband, Scott, were jubilant when they conceived their son Seth. Born in February 2018, he is every parent’s prayer — happy, healthy and undemanding.
In ways they couldn’t have predicted, their baby’s good nature has been a godsend to the Slaytons. Less than a month after Seth was born, Amanda started having extreme shortness of breath. When Seth needed to be nursed, she struggled to walk the short distance between her recliner and his crib.
Amanda dismissed her breathing issues as seasonal asthma and allergies. And since swelling often accompanies pregnancy, her swollen legs seemed logical too.
“I was a licensed practical nurse for 12 years,” Amanda said. “Nurses diagnose themselves all the time.”
At one point, the 39-year-old considered how much her symptoms resembled congestive heart failure, but she quickly discounted the thought, believing she was too young for such a diagnosis. Besides, she had a new baby and a 10-year-old son to care for, so she soldiered on.
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One morning Amanda’s breathing became so labored that she asked a relative to take her to Norton Audubon Hospital from the couple’s home in Pleasure Ridge Park. After a battery of tests and efforts to get her breathing under control, she was admitted to intensive care with peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare form of heart failure that can start soon after pregnancy.
Like any muscle, the heart gets bigger when it is overworked, and Amanda’s enlarged heart was only pumping at 10 to 15 percent of its normal capacity. Left untreated, it could have been fatal.
“Sometimes doctors can be thrown off the trail by symptoms of shortness of breath, fatigue and swelling, which are not uncommon during pregnancy,” said Amanda’s cardiologist, Kelly C. McCants, M.D., medical director of the Norton Heart & Vascular Institute Advanced Heart Failure Program.
When Dr. McCants first met Amanda, she was scared and anxious to get back to her family at home.
“We used some of the latest techniques and protocols to test her heart and were able to give her a little more encouragement,” Dr. McCants said.
An MRI revealed that she had no scar tissue in her heart muscle — an excellent indicator for a full recovery.
Once stabilized, Amanda began her journey back to health through a patient-centered program carefully coordinated for the needs of patients with heart failure. The program has a unique feature that researchers consider a key factor in successful recoveries: Patients see their heart specialists with greater frequency.
“Early on, we were seeing Amanda on a weekly basis, and as she improved, we began to space her visits out to every two weeks,” Dr. McCants said. “We’ll continue to space them out even further in the future.”
Both patient and physician are pleased with Amanda’s progress. She may soon return to work and her normal routines thanks to treatments that restore the heart to its normal size and maintain its rhythm. She may always need medication to keep her heart healthy, but Amanda is on track for a full recovery.
Dr. McCants’ optimism and competence buoyed Amanda’s spirits when she felt like her world was falling apart.
“I just love him,” she said. “When he asks how I’m feeling, I know that he genuinely cares about me.”
Dr. McCants said Amanda is one of the many high spots in the relatively new Advanced Heart Failure Program, which manages patients with the most serious heart conditions, including those who need sustained life support (mechanical circulatory devices) or a heart transplant.
“I try to treat patients like they’re family,” he said. “It’s hard enough to deal with a heart failure diagnosis. The physician and team taking care of you should make sure that you don’t feel like just another patient.”
If you are pregnant or just had a baby and notice any of these symptoms, contact your health provider:
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