Reason to Run

Nicole Brush has always been an avid exerciser, so the Medtronic Twin Cities 10 Mile race last year should have been a piece of cake. Instead, she collapsed 150 yards from the finish line and was taken by ambulance to Regions Hospital, where she woke up an hour and a half later in the emergency room.

Brush, thirty-seven, was severely dehydrated and suffered heat stroke. A diabetic for twenty-eight years, she also entered renal complications, so Regions kept her overnight for observation.

The next morning, Brush was allowed to check out of the hospital and scheduled a follow-up appointment with her primary doctor at Fairview Southdale Hospital two weeks later. The day before her appointment, she tried running for the first time since her collapse.

“My heart just felt like it was racing,” Brush says. “I went in for the follow-up appointment, and they had a hard time finding my blood pressure.”

Her doctor ran an EKG, which measures electrical activity of the heart, on Brush and found abnormal results. Within half an hour, she was transported to the Cardiac Unit where doctors diagnosed her with SVT, supraventricular tachycardia, a rapid beating of the heart caused by an electrical signal from a chamber of the heart.

“My husband termed it as an electrical storm in your heart,” Brush says. “Basically, it’s an electronic problem with the heart.”

SVT can come and go; doctors aren’t sure of the causes and why it can suddenly disappear, but a common symptom is rapid heart rate, approximately 140-250 beats per minute while resting. Months earlier, Brush had noticed her pulse was high. “I stopped wearing my heart rate monitor last spring while training,” she says. “I thought it was broken [because it showed such a high heart rate].”

Doctors gave Brush two different medications to control the SVT, but neither worked. They then tried mapping her heart in order to determine the origin of the SVT and performed a cardiac ablation, a common procedure that destroys tissue in a specific location in order to stop the “electrical storm.” The procedure, though painful (doctors weren't able to use sedation), was a success.

Recovery time from the procedure usually takes a few days, but due to the location of the ablation, Brush’s heart healed slowly. And though the procedure was deemed successful, other complications arose for Brush, including pain and discomfort, and her pulse was still abnormally high—especially when she tried running that December, the first time since her operation. “I wanted to get back to running because it’s my mental relaxation,” she says. “And, when really honest, I was scared and wanted to prove to myself that I would be fine.” But her heart rate jumped back into the 200s.

Throughout that winter, Brush went through a series of tests to watch her high heart rate, a condition called sinus tachycardia, which is not dangerous if monitored closely. In March, her doctor prescribed her a medication to bring her heart rate down, but it didn’t help and caused significant headaches.

For some reassurance and more expert advice, Brush went to the Mayo Clinic to see a cardiovascular disease specialist. “My concern was my endurance was not coming back at all,” she says. The doctor at Mayo agreed with Brush’s previous diagnosis but suggested she quit the medications to regain her endurance. She followed the advice, and since July, her endurance has slowly returned.

This year, Brush plans on running the TC 10 Mile again—and finishing.

“I’ve been told that I’m pretty lucky, that I’ve walked away from all of it,” she says. “It’s made me more of an aggressive runner because I’m happy to be out doing it.”

Today, Brush is careful to watch her health. “I am more aware of my heart rate and my body’s ability, and at times, that means I need to slow down my pace,” she says.

Brush advises other runners with an inspirational and educational message: “Listen to your body. If there is something [wrong], don’t ignore it.”