The day after her 18th birthday, Louise Lynn went to her doctor with sudden breathlessness. "First of all, my doctor thought I was having a panic attack. Later she found that my heart was beating 275 beats a minute. An ambulance was called and I was brought from my home in Crossmolina, Co Mayo to the intensive care unit at Castlebar hospital," she explains.
While in hospital, Lynn's heartbeat was stabilised but she was kept in hospital to monitor her condition. Ten days later, she had a bout of breathlessness again and, this time, she lost consciousness.
"I was then sent to Blanchardstown hospital for further tests," she says. An MRI scan revealed fatty deposits on the right ventricle of her heart which caused the irregular heart beat.
"The doctors tried to control it with beta blockers but I still had rapid heart beat at night so it was decided that I would have a defibrillator fitted," she says.
So, three months after her initial symptoms, Lynn was admitted to the Mater hospital in Dublin to have an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) inserted under local anaesthetic. That was in July 2004 just months after Lynn had sat four subjects in her Leaving Certificate.
The following year Lynn repeated her Leaving Certificate, attending the Mater hospital every three months for a check-up. She continues to take medication for her condition as well. "During this time, the device was fine tuned but I didn't have any major problems."
In September 2006, Lynn moved to Dublin to begin her third-level course but subsequently left that course for paid employment. In April last year, she had her defibrillator repositioned under local anaesthetic. "I had to take six weeks off work and went back home to Mayo after the operation where I stayed for the summer," she says.
Since last August Lynn has been one of 60 patients who have been set up with a remote monitoring system for her medical device. This means that instead of attending the hospital four times a year for a check-up, she now attends only once a year.
For the rest of the time, she downloads data from her defibrillator via phone line to the Mater hospital where a cardiac technician monitors her device and contacts her if necessary.
"It's great because it gives me the freedom to live my life. Before I was always worried about what would happen if I passed out. Now, I can live a normal life as long as I look after myself," she says. "I can do my own readings and don't have to wait to get a hospital appointment if I'm worried about anything. The cardiac technician rings me to tell me he got the data and so far, I haven't needed to go in to hospital unexpectedly."