Her father walked her down the aisle, thanks to her company's heart device
Laine Palmer remembers the call clearly. She was in college and her mother and father, Melissa and Courtney, were vacationing in Aruba. Melissa, a nurse, telephoned her daughter to say she had noticed something off with her husband. At dinner, as Courtney smiled and chatted, the left side of his face had begun to droop. A local doctor suspected Bell’s palsy, prescribed medication and told the two they could continue with their trip.
Two days later, during their flight home, Courtney fumbled with his keys and struggled with fine motor tasks. Melissa sensed something more serious could be going on. When they landed in Boston, she took Courtney straight to the emergency room.
A head CT revealed he had experienced two strokes. One had occurred within the past week. An echocardiogram was performed and uncovered a small hole in Courtney’s heart. This, combined with episodes of atrial fibrillation (AFib) — a condition in which the heart beats irregularly — explained the cause of his strokes. Courtney was placed on blood thinners and implanted with a cardiac monitoring device known as a loop recorder to monitor his heart rhythm.
But the treatment came with trade-offs. Courtney, a lineman for Verizon and avid woodworker, became immunocompromised. Small cuts led to significant bleeding and even minor bruises risked turning into hematomas. “His condition wasn’t sustainable,” Laine said. “It was affecting every part of his life.”
A device that can reduce stroke risk
During this time, Laine was an intern at Boston Scientific, so her ears perked up when her dad’s care team suggested a WATCHMAN Left Atrial Appendage Closure (LAAC) device as a potential therapy. After researching the device, watching procedure videos and asking colleagues questions, Laine learned the WATCHMAN device would reduce her dad’s risk of stroke and keep him from having to take blood thinners indefinitely. That research, coupled with Laine’s direct tie to Boston Scientific, gave her family an added measure of comfort.
In 2022, Laine joined Boston Scientific full-time. The following year, her dad received his WATCHMAN FLX device and recovered quickly. “He’s never looked back,” Laine says. “I don’t even know what life would look like without WATCHMAN.”
This summer, Courtney walked Laine, now an R&D engineer at Boston Scientific, down the aisle. (Laine’s husband? Another Boston Scientific employee — an engineer in Urology.)
Laine recently visited the Maple Grove, Minnesota facility where WATCHMAN devices are built.
“Because of the product builders who work there, I get to celebrate the moments that matter with my dad," she says. "There are no words to describe what that means to me.”
Learn more about our WATCHMAN FLX therapy.