Watch Out!

Woman saved by watch.  The woman is a Ms Heather Hendershot from Scranton in Kansas.  The watch is an Apple Watch Series 3, which is armed with sensors that detect the wearer’s heart rate and alert the owner when it is higher than it should be for a given level of activity.  When the 25 year old new mother’s watch began bleeping to notify that her resting heart rate was unusually high, Ms Hendershot first put the abnormal reading down to a malfunction and so she ignored the alert.  Luckily for her the watch would not take no for an answer.  It kept on bleeping for the next 24 hours, and eventually Ms Hendershot’s husband persuaded her to go to a hospital for a once over.  Good job she did for she was subsequently diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, a condition which can be fatal. Hyperthyroidism is treatable, but as Ms Hendershot had potentially been suffering from the condition for a number of years and had therefore gone a long time without any medication, doctors believed she was at risk of suffering a ‘thyroid storm’ – when heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature all shoot off the scale.  The young mother was therefore kept overnight in the intensive care unit, so that doctors could keep an eye on her heart rate and blood pressure.  She is due to undergo tests to determine the cause of her condition which can also develop during the year after a woman gives birth.  However an accurate diagnosis can only be made once she stops breast feeding her son who was born just four months earlier.  Unsurprisingly, until then Ms Hendershot intends to keep wearing her watch.  As she told local news station CW39: ‘I will not take it off.’ And who can blame her?