Two Precious Hearts
“I knew when I heard the knock on the door that something bad had happened,” said Mandi Chesser. A neighbor had come to tell Mandi, an experienced Registered Nurse, that Mandi’s ten-year-old daughter Madison had fallen while running and now wasn’t moving. Mandi grabbed her automatic external defibrillator (AED) and ran to her daughter’s side. Madison was in cardiac arrest. There, hearing siren sounds approaching, Mandi used the machine to restore her daughter’s heart back to life.
You might be surprised that Mandi would have an AED at home, but there is a reason for that. Four years earlier, in 2006, then six-year-old Madison was playing soccer. When her heart was beating too fast, her mother, a trained nurse, detected an arrhythmia. Later, when she was examined by her physician, pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Samir Ebeid, they learned that Madison has a rare disorder called “Long QT Syndrome.” Long QT Syndrome is an inherited disorder in which the heart takes longer to repolarize than normal, placing the person at higher risk for dangerous cardiac arrhythmias.
The collective decision of the physicians and her parents was to watch Madison and treat her with medications, rather than the more aggressive path of surgery. That decision would be amended when Mandi answered that knock on the door on January 23, 2010 and saved her own daughter’s life with her knowledge, skills and quick thinking. On January 25, 2010, Madison traveled by ambulance to Jacksonville where she was monitored for several days. After observation and consultation, her surgeons placed a two-lead Internal Cardiac Defibrillator with Pacemaker into her chest to prevent future episodes.
On Saturday night, April 5, 2014, the entire Chesser family attended the Heart Ball sponsored by the American Heart Association, held at the Wyndham Bay Point Resort Hotel. The large crowd there would hear the story of Mandi and Madison, mother and daughter, who lived this story. They were there, according to Mandi, to “Give a face to this problem – one that almost stole my daughter’s life, and to make people realize that heart disease can happen to anyone.” She adds “Who would have thought that this would happen to a little girl in fourth grade?”
The good news is that Madison is doing well. She has been given the doctor’s okay to participate in cheerleading and volleyball, but not contact sports. She has to take special precautions unusual for most girls her age, i.e., she cannot have an alarm clock or telephone in her bedroom during sleeping hours. Both Madison and Mandi support the American Heart Association. They are a mother-daughter team that teaches AED Awareness and CPR classes in Bay County. Madison and Mandi end each CPR class with their motto, “Together we can keep hearts beating.” According to Mandi, “Without the American Heart Association and its research, I wouldn’t have had the AED to save my daughter’s life and we wouldn’t have the technology to implant the devices that keep her alive today.” Every heart is important to the American Heart Association and Madison is living proof.”
By Dr. Dan Finley