cardiac ablation – Diary of Ann Franks

Friday the 10th, we arrived at the medical center around 6:00 AM to prep for my cardiac ablation procedure. They ask you to come at that ungodly hour to save on anesthesia –

Anyway – by the time I was poked, prodded and bored out of my skull, they wheeled me down the hall to surgery. Once perched on the operating table, they began apologizing. Why? Because the gel pads that were to be placed up and down my bare back and used to visualize my heart in 3D had not made their way under the warming pad, and thus were like little gel covered ice cubes.

The anesthesiologist arrived, said something witty, and before I knew it I was waking up in recovery. More than 3.5 hours had passed. Nice nap. My only clue that something had happened was the pain in my chest. I still had not seen my doctor and don’t even know for sure if he was there, although he apparently spent a good deal of time with Robert and my mother.

As expected when one spends the night in the hospital, I had a terrible night’s sleep punctuated by visits from nurses taking my blood pressure, temperature and poking at me. Around 9:00, I was visited by three wise men. No, wait, that’s a different story. I was visited by two different doctors. One from the cardiac practice and one that was the on call internist. Both of these doctors proceeded to give contradictory advice and opinions. The only thing they had in common was puzzlement over why the cardiologist gave me anything for pain. You see, weeks ago, my doctor wrote 2 prescriptions and told me to get them filled because I would need cream and/or patches for post surgical discomfort. (Apparently, one doesn’t want to take pain medication that could cause stomach bleeding when on blood thinners and such.) When I asked the doctors about the patches and cream, they looked at me like I had 12 heads and said, “Why would you need that?”

“Because I’m in pain?”

Shrug, they replied.

So now I have something like 44 patches and a jar full of pain cream that has never been used. Oh, but I got a call from my insurance yesterday saying they had automatically refilled these items and were shipping them to me overnight. Why on earth would the doctor have okayed MORE pain management supplies 2 weeks after surgery and WHY in the name of God won’t they ever do that with Valium??

But aside from that, my heart is still going into Afib on occasion, which is supposed to be normal for the next few months. Hopefully, soon, I will be back on an aspirin a day and off all the weird medications with side effects like blood shooting out of your eyeballs.

Seriously, the list includes:

blood in the eyes
bruising or purple areas on the skin
confusion – What?
coughing up blood
decreased alertness – What?
difficulty swallowing
dizziness
fainting
fast heartbeat
headache
hives, itching, skin rash
joint pain or swelling
nausea and vomiting
nosebleeds
puffiness or swelling of the eyelids or around the eyes, face, lips, or tongue
redness of the eye – not to be confused with blood in the eye. Or mud in the eye for that matter.
severe stomach pain
shortness of breath
tightness in the chest
unusual tiredness or weakness – how would I notice? I’m always tired.
vomiting of blood or material that looks like coffee grounds

I guess the bottom line is, if there is blood involved, it’s usually a pretty good indication that something has gone awry. Let’s all try to avoid that, shall we?

Now, here’s an image of my heart – before and after. The before is purple – which is good – and the after has all those dots where he “burned” it so the electrical current doesn’t shoot from one side to the other.

Ouch. Pretty cool.

Every family has their little hereditary health gems. Ours appears to be atrial fibrillation. Mine started in my post-twenties. (Vague enough?) I always considered it a panic attack until it conveniently occurred while on the way to my doctor for a check up.

I was driving along doing a little mental inventory on my health and well being when suddenly my heart went thuddy-thump. Then thuddy-thuddy-pause-thump-pause. My old Mustang used to do the same thing when the fuel filter was clogged.

Of course I shared nothing of this with the doctor’s staff until the third time they tried and failed to take my blood pressure because the machine kept giving them an error message. “Would my heart flipping out cause an error like that? It seems to be skipping beats.”

Next thing I knew I was lying on an exam table with electrodes attached to my chest. Official diagnosis – atrial fibrillation.

This is pretty popular in my family. My brother underwent a cardiac ablation just the previous year. That’s a procedure in which they go in and burn or freeze a part of the lining of your heart to intercept or block the electrical charge that is coming in and making your heart skip beats. (Of course, this is a very simplified explanation, because I don’t want to think too much about it.)

My Afib strikes randomly – sometimes when I think everything is fine and that I’m relaxed. Other times, I can feel that little electrical current hovering, just waiting for something to stress me out so it can zap my internal Ricky Ricardo into his 4 hour rendition of Babalu.

During that 4 hour period of time (give or take), my overactive imagination pictures a fluttering chamber in my heart where blood is pooling rather than circulating properly. I picture a thin layer of coagulated blood forming on top of the pool – like the skin that forms on pudding when left uncovered in your fridge. I imagine a clot of that goo making it’s way through my bloodstream and causing a stroke.

In other words, it freaks me out. Totally.

On Friday, I go in to have a cardiac ablation of my very own. My brother has been telling me all sorts of things to prepare me. Like how they let him sleep on his side and therefore all his internal organs swelled up and he could feel them rubbing against each other. And how the incision oozed for days.

This alarming exchange reminded me of when we were kids and he’d make scratching noises from his room and say, “Can you hear that? That’s a werewolf trying to get in.”

Yesterday he texted me regarding my upcoming pre-surgery CT scan.

Him: “Ever done contrast before?”

Me: “No.”

Him: “It made me feel itchy. You like IVs?”

Me: “I don’t have a problem with IVs.”

Him: “Well, okay. Mine creeped me out. Especially since I had it for so long.”

Me: “Had what for so long? The IV or the CT scan?”

Him: “IV. Overnight. During and after procedure.”

Me: “Oh, okay. No, not a problem. I’m familiar with that.”

Him: “Pirate’s Booty is yummy.”