Whether it’s a stroll through Sapula’s Liberty Park, or on the back of a horse in the mountains of Wyoming, Ken Edmonson has a heart for the outdoors.
“I’m from northeast Oklahoma originally… I graduated high school here, got married and we went to Wyoming and lived up there for 32 years,” said 72-year-old Edmonson, who recounted his story while sitting under a tree with his dog on a sunny spring day. “I was an equipment operator at a strip mine, but I raised horses on the side.”
Even as a young man, Edmonson knew his heart was working against him; some bad news came after a horse accident while cowboying in rural Wyoming.
“We were moving cows up the canyon on the Bighorn Mountains and my horse mis-stepped crossing a deep gully and he fell,” said Edmonson. “He struck me right in the face, right on top of my nose with his iron shoe and knocked me cold.”
His trip to the hospital revealed that he has atrial fibrillation (AFib), a condition where the heart’s upper chambers beat irregularly and often rapidly, causing blood flow issues. But Edmonson didn’t let this news stop his life.
“I was always very active with my AFib, breaking horses and hunting and that kind of thing up in the mountains of Wyoming,” said Edmonson.
Returning home: Edmonson seeks his golden years
After three decades in the Cowboy State, Edmonson returned to Green Country to slow down. But Edmonson’s heart couldn’t keep up.
“I’m pretty positive person, but it was hard at times,” said Edmonson. “I’ve always tried to run and keep in shape and that kind of thing, but I noticed [I] started slowing down and putting on a little weight… I was getting a little negative and dealing with probably a little bit of depression.”
Edmonson soon discovered that, on top of AFib, he had tricuspid valve regurgitation, which occurs when the tricuspid valve, which regulates blood flow between the heart’s right atrium and right ventricle, doesn’t close properly, causing blood to flow backward.
“I searched around for a heart doctor down here and I had some bad experiences with a couple of them, they just wouldn’t listen to me,” said Edmonson.
Then, Edmonson found himself in the office of Kamran Muhammad, M.D., director of the structural heart program at Oklahoma Heart Institute.
“He tells you all the facts that I needed to know and wanted to know, answered every question,” said Edmonson. “He just exudes confidence… I trusted him.”
“We spent a lot of time discussing, ‘How do you feel?’ and it was very clear when we met Ken that he was symptomatic, hence the reason he’s been going to a lot of cardiologists,” said Dr. Muhammad. “He couldn’t do the things he wanted to do in his daily life because he was suffering.”
Dr. Muhammad recognized Edmonson as an ideal candidate for one of OHI’s many clinical trials, which give patients access to cutting-edge, lifesaving care found in only a few dozen hospitals across the country.
“It’s super important for us as the leading cardiovascular center in the state to be able to offer something more than what’s already approved,” said Dr. Muhammad.
Good news: TRISCEND II trial
That ‘something more’ came in the TRISCEND II trial and Edmonson was approved to participate.
The technology used in the trial is the first of its kind in the world. Previously, physicians could only treat a leaky heart valve with major surgery, which involves stopping a patient’s heart to perform an hours-long valve replacement procedure followed by weeks of recovery time. Through the TRISCEND II trial, Dr. Muhammad instead installed a heart valve through a single incision.
“We’re able to implant a new, well-functioning tricuspid valve, the EVOQUE valve, in Ken’s heart without any surgery,” said Dr. Muhammad. “We don’t have to open the chest. We don’t have to open the heart. We don’t have to stop the heart.”
Now, more than a year after his procedure, Edmonson says Dr. Muhammad and the TRISCEND II trial gave him back his life.
“That’s a big game changer right there, when they make you feel so much better than you were feeling,” said Edmonson. “I feel good now. I’m just a happy fella.”
Clinical trials: The future of heart health investigated at OHI
Dr. Muhammad says it’s a privilege and a responsibility for Oklahoma Heart Institute to participate in clinical trials; thousands of patients have gotten the treatment they need years before it’s available to other hospitals. Oklahoma Heart Institute is the only hospital in Tulsa investigating the newest technology in heart care, with more than 30 trials going on at the time of publication.
“Before 2024, there were no therapies in the whole United States for treatment of tricuspid regurgitation. The only thing you could do is take medicines, which are like a Band-Aid. They don’t fix the valve,” said Dr. Muhammad. “The most exciting thing to me, and to a lot of folks at OHI, is to be part of that development phase of medical advancement.”
Cardiac care research is a young field exploding with change and progress. The providers at Oklahoma Heart Institute are invested in investigating that progress, rather than waiting on the sidelines for progress to come to them.
“That’s what makes it such a great field because we’re always innovating, investigating and doing research on new technologies for the benefit of our patients,” said Dr. Muhammad. “We want to give them those golden years to enjoy, and not just be stuck at home or stuck in bed… We’re trying to give them back their quality of your life.”
For more information on clinical trials at Oklahoma Heart Institute, visit our research page or the Oklahoma Heart Foundation website.