LOS ANGELES -- Kenley Jansen has enjoyed a breakout year, helping lead the Dodgers to the kind of season most teams only dream about.
The 25-year-old right hander has recorded 25 saves and four wins as the Dodgers overcame a 9.5 game deficit to turn it into a likely insurmountable 12-game ead over Arizona in the National League West.
They are remarkable personal accomplishments for a young man, who less than a year ago, was in danger of dying any time he took the mound.
Jansen missed parts of the 2011 and 2012 seasons after being diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, a condition that causes one's heart to beat wildly out of rhythm. Through rest and medication the condition subsided and he was able to get back on the hill. But it returned like a bad dream in 2012, and this time some serious decisions had to be made.
"When it finally came down to it, I knew I was going to have to have the (cardiac) ablation surgery," said the native of Curacao. "I was so tired all the time from my heart beating so fast, that I just wanted to be done with it and not have to worry about what might happen."
What might have happened isn't pleasant to think about.
Atrial fibrillation can potentially cause crippling or fatal strokes, heart attacks and congestive heart failure. The fact that Jansen is 6-foot-5, 270 pounds and in great shape meant nothing in battling the ailment.
"The strange part of the whole situation is that Kenley could have pitched through it," said Stan Conte, the Dodgers' director of medical services. "Medication would have calmed down his heart and lessened the chances of anything bad happening. Then any procedure necessary could have been done during the offseason.
"But because he was taking blood-thinning medication, if he got hit in the head by a throw or a line drive, he could have died almost immediately from internal breathing. So we had to shut him down."
And if Jansen wandered on the field to play catch hours before the game in a closed stadium, he still had to wear a protective helmet to make sure he was fully protected.
"Sometimes I wondered why this was happening to me," Jansen said.
"Like most things in medicine, it's a combination of reasons," said Dr. Arby Nahapetian, a cardiologist who practices out of the UCLA Medical Center. "Now, I'm not his treating physician, but most people wind up developing (atrial fibrillation) because of other problems, whether it be high blood pressure, coronary disease or cardiomyopathy, which causes the heart to get weaker.
"Our first choice is to manage it with medications, but if the medication doesn't work, there are a number of (surgical) procedures available, including ablation."
Cardiac ablation is a surgical procedure that is much like unclogging blocked arteries in the heart, starting with wires being sent from an artery in the groin area directly into the heart muscle.
However, with this treatment the heart is mapped out in different sections until they find the area(s) that are causing the a-fib. Then during the ablation, that tissue is literally burned away and the heart kicks back into normal rhythm.
Nahapetian went on to explain that a pacemaker and/or defibrillator could also be put in the patient's chest to keep the heart at a normal rhythm. Worst-case scenario is waiting for a heart transplant. None of those steps is the absolute cure-all, though, and while ablation is excellent, it’s a bit risky and no guarantee that you'll be able to walk out of the hospital a new person.
"It depends on the kind of arrhythmia you're dealing with," he said. "For some, the rate of success is 90 to 95 percent. For others, it's as low as 60 to 70 percent."
So far for the seemingly always laid back Jansen and the Dodgers, it's been a rousing success.
Just take a look at the stats.
