Valley woman suffers from rare heart defect called Wolff-Parkinson-White

PHOENIX - Five years ago Phoenix native Wende Rosania started experiencing heart palpitations.

Wende was falsely diagnosed several times, being told they were stress-related symptoms. It wasn’t until eight months ago that she finally got some real answers.

A light walk with her daughter around her neighborhood led to a trip to the hospital when Wende’s heart started racing around 276 beats per minute.

It was then that Dr. Marwan Bahu had told Wende that she suffered from a heart defect that she has had since birth. Wolff-Parkinson-White is present in less than one percent of the population. It is a heart defect in the electrical system, resulting in extremely rapid heartbeats.

“My heart kind of went into what I would consider overdrive. It was a feeling more of, my heart is having a seizure but I’m not,” Wende explained.

Wende’s daughter Brittney describes the horrific episode, “you could see her heart was beating so fast I could see it in her chest, like her whole chest was moving.”

Wende was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital where she successfully underwent a procedure to cauterize an extra connection in her heart. Today, she is 100 percent cured.