Jennifer Shaffer

For the past 32 years, Jennifer Shaffer has cared for others in her community as a home health nurse. As someone accustomed to caring for a wide spectrum of illnesses, she admits she was in denial when she was diagnosed with heart failure.

“Sometimes I think people in the medical field are the hardest ones to accept their health,” Shaffer said.

What she thought was COVID-19 was actually A-Fib, which led Shaffer to have a few ablations that ultimately failed. She then met Dr. Guru Mohanty, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Chippenham Hospital who is using a novel cardiac implant for patients suffering from heart failure symptoms and a diminished quality of life. He implanted the first Cardiac Contractility Modulation device in Virginia in 2021, and Chippenham continues to be the only implanting HCA Healthcare hospital in Virginia. Schaffer was a candidate for CCM and described the device as giving therapy to her heart.

“It looks like a pacemaker and is implanted like one, but it acts very differently,” Mohanty said. “It activates the heart in what we call a non-excitatory fashion during the cardiac cycle — resulting in a reverse remodeling of the heart. So, the heart can contract better over time.”

Prior to her procedure, Shaffer felt so terrible that she went on disability. But with this device, she has had improvement and is doing a lot more than she could do before and there has seen a big improvement in how she functions day-to-day.

“It’s important to realize nothing is a quick fix, but there has been tremendous improvement in the overall function of Jennifer’s heart and, more important, we’ve seen her functional capacity improve over time,” Mohanty said.

Shaffer is getting back on her feet, resuming many activities like walking with friends and line dancing.

“I’m not going to quit and give up,” she said, “I’m going to make myself get up and do something. I would recommend CCM to any of my friends — Dr. Mohanty has done a lot for me.”