The Apple Watch does many incredible things when it comes to monitoring the health of the timepiece’s user. Feeling pressure at work, 48-year-old Sue Dumbauld of Atlanta really needed to have her Apple Watch stay on top of her health. She was picking up bad habits thanks to the stress of her job. She ate poorly, didn’t exercise, and built up a huge sleep deficit. And she almost missed the warning sound of her Apple Watch signaling that something was wrong.
While the Apple Watch alarm went off, Sue was on a call and thought that the noise she was hearing was an Amber Alert. When she looked down at her wrist, her Apple Watch told a scary story: “Your heart rate is at 137 for more than 10 minutes, do you want to call 911?” her watch said. Later she admitted that she had no idea that her device could do that. Trying to reduce the things that could give her a heart problem, Dumbauld quit her stressful job and worked on getting her health back.
While getting checked out by physicians, Sue discovered the reason why her Apple Watch had her heart rate at 137. As it turned out. Dumbauld was born with a serious heart problem, aortic stenosis, and had to have surgery when only four days old. She had to go through several open-heart surgeries when little. At 18, she developed an infection in the inner lining of her heart, a condition known as Endocarditis.
Sue Dumbauld’s Apple Watch indicated correctly that she needed a fourth open heart surgery. | Image credit-Sue Dumbauld
After the Apple Watch warning, Sue continued to work on her health and her game plan included walking one hour daily. She lost weight and her LDL cholesterol dropped by 49 points. But when she had an echocardiogram last June, it showed that she still had some issues. When she arrived at the hospital in September, she was in heart failure. With her health rapidly declining, she was told not to allow her heart rate to get above 100 beats per minute which put the Apple Watch’s heart rate monitoring feature in the spotlight.
Dumbauld underwent a 10-hour surgery called the Ross procedure in September. The operation replaced the diseased aortic valve with the pulmonary valve. The latter was replaced with a cadaver valve. Doing the surgery this way allowed Sue to resume her travels and exercises without needing to be on medication for the rest of her life.
The Heart Rate monitor on the Apple Watch became Sue Dumbauld’s must-see viewing 24/7. | Image credit-PhoneArena
This December, less than three months after her surgery, Dumbauld traveled to Austria and Germany. She’s already made travel plans for spring of this year. There is no doubt that she will be wearing her Apple Watch wherever she goes just in case her heart rate becomes elevated again which could be a sign, as it was last year, that more surgery is required. With the Apple Watch’s heart rate monitor, Sue can track how fast her heart is beating and will be alerted if it is time to make an emergency trip to the hospital no matter what country she happens to be in at the moment.
