Carolyn Thompson

	Carolyn Thompson with her granddaughter

Carolyn Thompson had a lot to live for—a grandchild on the way, a daughter’s wedding to plan and a son heading back to college. Sadly, Thompson wasn’t sure that she would be a part of these special occasions.

The 57-year-old Mount Gilead resident was experiencing shortness of breath and chest pains when she went to the emergency room in September 2008. Her diagnosis was atrial fibrillation (a-fib), a debilitating heart rhythm disorder.

For five months after her diagnosis, Thompson dealt with the devastating side effects of various drugs used to treat a-fib. A dedicated employee at a medical clinic in Albemarle, she had to quit working because of frequent hospitalizations and days when getting out of the bed was just impossible.

Despite all she had to live for, Thompson wasn’t sure that she would make it. “I really thought I was going to die,” she says.

But she didn’t die.

In January 2009, Thompson’s cardiologist referred her to FirstHealth cardiothoracic surgeon Andy Kiser, M.D., to see if she was a candidate for a procedure that combines the Ex-Maze and catheter ablation procedures into one procedure to treat atrial fibrillation. In February, she became the second person in the country and the first person in North Carolina to undergo the Convergent Procedure.

Her physicians were Dr. Kiser and electrophysiologist Mark Landers, M.D.

“I feel great and I haven’t experienced any a-fib or chest pain since having the surgery,” Thompson says.

Thompson, who could hardly walk into Dr. Kiser’s office for her first appointment, now walks at least a mile every night and is in even better shape than she was before she developed a-fib.

“I’m extremely grateful to the doctors and staff at Moore Regional for fixing my heart,” she says. “I’ve never had such great care and service in my life.”

Thompson went back to work full time at the medical clinic in April. In the same month, she became a grandmother for the third time, an occasion that she had feared she would miss.

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