Health Watch: Fixing a hole in your heart
Green Bay, Wis. (WFRV) – A pounding headache and slurred speech sent Brian Holewinski to the emergency room in 2011.
“(My wife) woke me up. When she walked into the bedroom, she told me I was trying to push my head through the mattress, the pain was so bad,” Holewinski recalls. “She woke me up and she goes, ‘What’s going on?’ And I started slurring my words, then I threw up. She goes, ‘Oh my God, you’re having a stroke,’” he said.
Holewinski was indeed having a stroke. Doctors couldn’t figure out what caused it, until a test revealed what’s called an atrial septal defect: A hole in his heart.
“Atrial septal defects are basically an abnormality of the top chamber of the heart,” explained Dr. Kristopher Selke, Director of Structural Cardiology at Aurora BayCare Medical Center.
“In other words, there’s a wall in the top chamber of the heart, and in development, there’s two portions of the wall that develop. An atrial septal defect develops when one portion doesn’t grow long enough or high enough, or just doesn’t grow period,” Dr. Selke said.
Dr. Selke said these types of defects happen at birth, and often aren’t discovered until later in life.
“I was totally caught off guard,” Holewinski recalled. “I was active, played sports, football and basketball in high school. I never would’ve thought I had an issue with my heart. I never had any signs,” he said.
Holewinski spent years on blood thinners and medications to manage the defect. Finally in 2023, a new, minimally invasive procedure to fix the hole, connected him to Dr. Selke.
“Transcatheter fixing of the hole, we call that percutaneous septal closure. That’s where a catheter is introduced through a puncture in the vein and we’re delivering a device to patch up the hole,” Dr. Selke said. “The difference is really just how invasive it is, and the ability to deliver the device through a small catheter in the groin,” he added.
Heart procedures can be scary, but Holewinski said Dr. Selke made him feel completely at ease.
“When I saw Dr. Selke, I walked into his office, and he treated me just like I was his best friend. He took the time, he told me we’re not on any schedule, if you have any questions ask them, I’ll walk you through the whole procedure,” said Holewinski.
“He pulled out the instrument he was going to use to close the hole in my heart, and then he just said, ‘How do you feel?’ When I walked out of his office that day, I felt relieved, like it was done already,” he said.
Less than a year later, Holewinski is living a more normal life, without the weight of the unknown.
“If somebody comes up to you and says, ‘You have a hole in your heart,’ it affects you mentally. Like, what’s wrong with me? How come I never knew this? How come nobody ever caught it?” Holewinski said. “So now, with this being done, I feel 100 percent better. More relaxed. It’s a life-changing procedure,” he said.
If you have a minor atrial septal defect, you might not need treatment. To take a heart risk assessment, visit Aurora BayCare’s website.
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