medical – 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.

After a delay caused by the Rangers, I am finally taking the sleep study/lab thingy. I checked in at 9:30 PM and found a depressing room, much like the one in the previous post. Actually identical, I think. Truth in advertising! What a concept! The lab tech dude that checked me in said it will be an hour and a half until he gets to me. So now, I can enjoy my free time. In this room. The room that is making me itch. Seriously. I have the heebies AND the jeebies.

And yes, that IS a fake Ficus tree.

To counter the decor (which I would refer to as “early yuck,”) I brought along some DVDs. I was forewarned I might need entertainment when I read on my the pamphlet: “Bedrooms include queen-sized beds and TV/DVD combos with standard antenna broadcasting.”

That’s right. ANTENNA broadcasting. Eat your hearts out.

What does a girl watch to get her mind off non-prettiness, itchiness, the worst bedspread ever, and a sense of impending doom? The Dick Van Dyke Show. I’ll check back in after they plug me into all the sensors and electrode type things. Meanwhile, enjoy the view. I know I am.

And yes, that light to the right of the TV is a camera. Monitoring my every move.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING:

I did not continue this post after being connected to the gear. Why? Because I couldn’t possibly move without disconnecting something. I had electrodes attached to my head and in my hair, on my legs, my arms, you name it. Plus, there was a sensor like they take your heart rate with taped to my Iphone typing finger, “Gus.”
– Seen here minus accoutrements.

So with Gus out of commission, (and also noticeably in need of a mani), I cautiously maneuvered under the so-called “sheets” and closed my eyes. It is not easy to sleep connected to over a dozen little wires. I tried for a pleasant dream, but to add insult to injury, I ended up dreaming I was in a Sleep Lab. The Sleep Lab in my dream was WAY nicer than the one I was actually in, so that was good.

The bad part was the difficulty breathing. (Although semi-consciously I thought, “Good. I am cooperating. I am not like my car that refuses to repeat the same noise for a mechanic that it delights me with on a daily basis.”) The OTHER bad part was that I don’t know if I actually slept. There was a lot of tossing and turning, or readjusting, as the wires kept waking me up as they tugged this way or that. I must have slept at some point, despite evidence to the contrary. I look like I belong in that drab, sad room today.

I was awakened by lab tech dude at 6:00 AM and handed paperwork. He’s lucky he didn’t get punched. He wanted answers to questions like, “How many hours did you sleep last night?” “Did you wake up during the night?” “For how long?”

Wait… Isn’t that what YOU are supposed to tell ME?

If you think I can judge time when I am asleep you are wrong. I went camping once and would have sworn I had been asleep for at least 2 hours, only to find, in reality, ten minutes had passed. I am NOT a good judge of time when uncomfortable and yet unconscious.

Results are back in about a week. I don’t care what they tell me, as long as I never have to be in that room again.

And if you are interested in what I looked like with all those sensors stuck to my head, it was something like this. Only Pin Head is much more stoic than I.