Page 33 - PMCC on the Globe and Mail - 2016 Edition

01 Football player cells. This condition could in
Darrian Seaton-
Tucker says that
the day his heart
stopped mid-
game, he’d been
feeling “pretty
good.”
02 Darrian and
his mother, Leis
Seaton, rejoice
in the freedom
the implantable
defibrillator
inserted by
Dr. Michael Gollob
has given him.
01
some kind of heart arrhythmia,
but they didn’t know why.
“It was very surreal for me
because all I could think was, My
son is like a lion; he’s an athlete.
What do you mean he has a heart
problem? What are you saying
to me?” remembers Ms. Seaton,
who flew out to be with her son
as soon as she got the call.
“I was helpless. And as a
mother, we don’t know that
language.”
After doctors woke him from
the coma, Mr. Seaton-Tucker was
transferred by air ambulance to
the Hospital for Sick Children
in Toronto. A battery of tests
followed, and he was diagnosed
with Short QT syndrome (SQTS),
a rare genetic disease of the
heart’s electrical system. People
with SQTS have abnormal
electrical properties of their heart
Winter 2017
over, and Darrian said, ‘Mom, risk that he could damage his
turn lead to a risk of dangerous please, just let me go. I will be implanted defibrillator,” says Dr.
arrhythmias. right back; I just need a minute,’ ” Gollob.)
says Ms. Seaton.
Mr. Seaton-Tucker was “Right now it’s my little
referred to Dr. Michael Gollob, “It felt good to get out, but I was nemesis,” says Ms. Seaton of her
a Cardiologist, Scientist and still very sore,” adds Mr. Seaton- son’s wish to return to football.
Chair of the Peter Munk Centre Tucker. These days, he says, he “My foot is totally on the brake. If
of Excellence in Molecular barely notices the implanted it were up to Darrian, he would
Medicine at the Peter Munk defibrillator at all. “Mornings be like, ‘I’m just going to check
Cardiac Centre (PMCC). He’s sometimes I feel it, but other out the field, see what it’s saying,’
part of the internationally than that, I don’t really pay but he needs to just walk a little
recognized Inherited Arrythmia attention to it.” bit, just take it easy.”
Program at the PMCC, one
of the largest of its kind in the Mr. Seaton-Tucker graduated Regardless of what the future
world, which sees more than from the local high school in holds, Mr. Seaton-Tucker says
1,000 patients a year. June, and now he’s taking a year that his experience with SQTS
off before university, focusing has profoundly affected him and
Dr. Gollob recommended on getting a part-time job and made him realize how precious
Mr. Seaton-Tucker get an getting his body back in good life really is.
implantable defibrillator, physical condition. He says he
which would protect him in the wants to play football again in “It’s true when they say life is
event of a recurring dangerous the future, although Dr. Gollob very short and it can be taken
arrhythmia. The defibrillator does not recommend it. (“Due away very fast,” he says. “So I
would be surgically placed under to the high physical impact from guess that is one of the positives
his skin. this sport, there is a significant I’ve gotten from this
experience.”
“[Mr. Seaton-Tucker] essentially
died from this condition [at 02
the game in Princeton], but
fortunately received CPR and a “[Darrian] essentially died from
‘shock’ from paramedics to return this condition but fortunately
him to life,” says Dr. Gollob. received CPR and a shock from
paramedics to return him to life.”
“The risk of recurrence of this
sort of sudden event is high. Dr. Michael Gollob
There is no single medication
proven to lower his risk. The
condition is not influenced by
diet, weight or exercise. The
safest treatment is the placement
of a defibrillator, which works
by sensing his heart rhythm,
beat by beat, and should it
detect a deadly arrhythmia, the
defibrillator will shock his heart
to terminate that dangerous
arrhythmia,” says. Dr. Gollob.
Ms. Seaton was unsure at
first about her son getting the
implantable defibrillator, but
says Dr. Gollob explained why it
was his best shot at preventing
cardiac arrest and getting his
quality of life back. At the time,
Mr. Seaton-Tucker was required
to carry a portable defibrillator
with him at all times, as well as
constantly have someone with
him who was trained how to
use it on him in case of another
cardiac event.
“Darrian always had to be with
somebody, and if you know my
son, he gets in those moods
where he’s like, ‘I want to shut
everybody out and I want to be
by myself.’ So it was a real chore,”
says Ms. Seaton.
The procedure to implant the
defibrillator was successful, and
Mr. Seaton-Tucker relished his
new-found freedom.
“The same day, his friend came
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