Reclaiming His Fitness from AFib: Meet Tom Hammergren

Watch Tom share his story

When TriHealth patient Tom Hammergren went in to see an ENT specialist for chronic hoarseness in 2020, he certainly didn’t think it would lead to a cancer diagnosis. 

And after undergoing a procedure on his paralyzed vocal cord and various cancer treatments including chemo, radiation and immunotherapy, Tom thought he was out of the woods when he got to remission. He was not. 

“I was a swimmer in college, so my conditioning of choice is to swim laps,” Tom said. “I started experiencing bouts of AFib but didn’t really know what it was.” 

Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) is an irregular heart rhythm that begins in your heart’s upper chambers, known as the atria. AFib typically causes a host of symptoms, including but not limited to fatigue, heart palpitations, trouble breathing and dizziness.

Despite doing his best to manage his AFib with medication in the months following his diagnosis, Tom was still struggling with palpitations stemming from his exercise. 

“The bouts started increasing in duration—so though I was having fewer AFib episodes, they were lasting a lot longer,” he said. “I think my longest was 13 days.”

The ongoing fatigue was really starting to bother Tom, especially with how active he prefers to keep himself.

“You couldn’t breathe,” he said. “If you tried to do anything strenuous it would pull you back a little bit.”

This tradeoff became too much for Tom over time, and he eventually decided that he would do everything in his power to fix it as permanently as possible.

This pursuit of care led him to TriHealth cardiologist, Dr. Gaurang Gandhi.

“Tom is a very physically active guy, he always wants to exercise but whenever he starts to exercise he goes into atrial fibrillation,” Dr. Gandhi stated about his patient’s condition. “He wanted me to perform an ablation.”

An ablation is a procedure where the surgeon will destroy the nerve that sends the electrical signals to the heart that cause the abnormality. While traditional ablations utilize either heat or cold to deaden the nerve, a Pulse Field Ablation utilizes an electrical current that is more precise and less likely to damage surrounding tissue.

After some initial reluctance due to Tom’s recent cancer treatment, Dr. Gandhi performed the Pulse Field Ablation for him.

“It would be straightforward for someone his age and as physically fit as he is,” Dr. Gandhi explained. “But because cancer metastasized to his brain, it was something that was challeneging.”

Despite the challenge of the procedure, Tom had total faith in Dr. Gandhi.

“He had faith in the whole system that we would take good care of him,” said Dr. Gandhi. “And he really wants to be very functional, and he wants to live a normal life.”

Tom was amazed at how quick the recovery was.

“I was back on my feet within a week,” he said. “It seemed like it was a life saver to me.”

Tom is now back to swimming 2-3 days a week, walking regularly with his wife and keeping up with the work around his property that began giving him trouble with the AFib bouts, and he credits the team at TriHealth with helping him get there.

“Everybody I’ve encountered at TriHealth has that similar mindset, that it’s a team,” Tom said.