Our Patients' Perspective

‘It gave me a new life.’
– Susan Meyer

Susan Meyer enjoys her classroom work once again.

Susan Meyer raised three children and worked as a first-grade teacher, so she thought it was normal to always be so tired. But her fatigue was due to worsening atrial fibrillation compounded by mitral valve stenosis. Diagnosed in May 2005, she underwent what she calls her “replacement, repair and remodel” heart operation.

She had a mitral valve replacement, a tricuspid valve repair and the Cox-Maze procedure to cure her atrial fibrillation. “Now I feel wonderful,” she says. “It gave me a new life.” On a recent vacation to the mountains, she outhiked her husband. “I’m lucky to have had such capable, caring people to fix me,” she says of her Washington University physicians at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

More about Susan Meyer's story  

Jeff Strickland looks forward to life
without symptoms of atrial fibrillation

Jeff Strickland builds his endurance after a Cox-Maze procedure.

Jeff Strickland is a former marine devoted to running and exercise. In 1990, he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF). Over time, his AF worsened until it became difficult to run and even life’s daily routines frequently left him exhausted.

Strickland turned to the Washington University Center for Atrial Fibrillation after many years of medical treatment and undergoing  catheter ablations for atrial flutter and pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) ablations. Eight months after his Cox Maze procedure,  he was free from AF. He also had run three miles on one occasion and planned to start swimming as part of his exercise program.

More about Jeff Strickland's story