News Detail
Biology 12
A look into the heart
Earlier in the school year, Alex Duford, a member of our faculty, suffered a stroke. After a period of rest, he underwent a new procedure and then shared his experience with students:
Doctors believe that the cause of my stroke in September was due to a hole in my heart which did not fully close from birth. The hole is called a PFO (Patent Foramen Ovale), which is a hole between the left and the right atrium. Students in Mrs. Ransom's and Mr. Austin's classes were learning about the fetal heart, so I was asked to relate what I had just experienced in surgery to what they were learning in the Bio 12 curriculum.
I explained to students that I was part of a trial study to close the PFO. A surgical team accessed my heart through the large femoral vein in my leg, and implanted a device (Gore Septal Occluder) which will act as a barrier between my left and right atrium. I was awake for the whole procedure and was able to see inside my heart and the device being implanted.
This study will be conducted over the next 5 years and I will be subject to regular check-ups at Vancouver General Hospital where the surgery was done. It was an amazing experience, and one that I hope will lead to more people in the future having this procedure done before they have a stroke (i.e. a proactive approach to lowering the chance of stroke in healthy young individuals).
– Alex Duford
Photos by Stephen Lane
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Doctors believe that the cause of my stroke in September was due to a hole in my heart which did not fully close from birth. The hole is called a PFO (Patent Foramen Ovale), which is a hole between the left and the right atrium. Students in Mrs. Ransom's and Mr. Austin's classes were learning about the fetal heart, so I was asked to relate what I had just experienced in surgery to what they were learning in the Bio 12 curriculum.
I explained to students that I was part of a trial study to close the PFO. A surgical team accessed my heart through the large femoral vein in my leg, and implanted a device (Gore Septal Occluder) which will act as a barrier between my left and right atrium. I was awake for the whole procedure and was able to see inside my heart and the device being implanted.
This study will be conducted over the next 5 years and I will be subject to regular check-ups at Vancouver General Hospital where the surgery was done. It was an amazing experience, and one that I hope will lead to more people in the future having this procedure done before they have a stroke (i.e. a proactive approach to lowering the chance of stroke in healthy young individuals).
– Alex Duford
Photos by Stephen Lane
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