Award-Winning Book on Atrial Fibrillation

Kathe Ehlert, of Boca Grande, recently contributed a touching chapter to a book penned by her eldest son.

ATRIAL FRUSTRATION, A Cardiac Arrhythmia Saga, was Amazon's #1 New Release in both Cardiology and in Cardiac Disease, and was published earlier this year by Adam Ehlert.

“There’s a saying among mothers,” Kathe Ehlert wrote in the book's penultimate chapter. “You’re only as happy as your least-happy child. This applies to healthy also, because if a child of mine is struggling with a health issue, I’m not only unhappy for him, I’m worried and frightened.”

The book details Adam Ehlert’s several-year journey—starting at the young age of 39—with arrhythmia, and the wearying search for relief from the non-linear, but progressive, disease.

Atrial Fibrillation is the world’s most pervasive cardiac arrhythmia—especially among seniors —but each patient’s story is unique. Most are less complicated than Ehlert’s. The saga was complicated by a previously-undiscovered cardiac birth defect, and then the story wends through dozens and dozens of drug options, several small surgeries, the mother-of-all-open-heart-surgeries. Rhythm has now finally been maintained by continued therapeutic drugs, and the Godsend addition of a Pacemaker.

It is a significant story for readers affected by cardiac arrhythmia, and more broadly for patients facing any serious medical situation; Ehlert’s description of navigating the “medical-industrial complex” details the frustration through that process.

“Through all my fear, worry, concern, the thousands of emotions that we all go through when someone we love is struggling, I never once doubted that there was an answer for him, and that he would find it, his heart would behave and he could continue the healthy productive life he deserves."

“I guess that’s what a mother’s heart does,” wrote Kathe Ehlert. “It believes.”