Adventures of A Racing Heart - Afib Adventures Number 5 and 6 (APRIL 2021)

AFib number 5 and 6

So, on Easter Sunday (April 2021), a mere 32 days later, I AGAIN woke up in AFib.  I AGAIN took the two big doses of Flecainide, I AGAIN went back to sleep and I AGAIN had to present myself at Addenbrookes, where they AGAIN decided an immediate DCCV was in my best interests!  Talk about Groundhog Day! And they doubled my flecainide from 50 mg x twice per day to 100 mg twice per day.

Felt a bit worse after this one, I suppose that was the effect of two ‘zappings’ so close together.  I contacted the secretary of my Electrocardiologist at Papworth and she said I would be moved up to “Priority One” and “should” be seen within four weeks.  I was to chase the booking office after two weeks. 

This I did only to discover that  I was NOT on the urgent list – therefore, I had to chase the secretary again, who said I definitely WAS!  So, I began to realise that the four weeks was just a ‘best case scenario’ and that it could be several months of waiting.

Bearing that in mind, I made the decision to re-open my Sports Massage Business which had been closed since late December due to Covid. I was delighted, after the previous 18 months of disruption, to have six bookings immediately (it’s only a small hobby practise). And on 12 April I finally returned to work at my other job for the first time since December 2020 (when I worked the sum total of four days due to being on Coronavirus-Covid 19 Flexi-Furlough!).

So, you can imagine my feelings when I woke up just 18 days after Cardioversion #5 to find I was in AFib again.  Followed the same routine, although this time I’d awoken at about 6 am with it so I didn’t go back to sleep! Hubby started to drive me to Addenbrookes again, but this time I felt much more ill – plus, not only was the HR fast and irregular, it kept going very slow.  I’d not had anything like that before and so my husband turned back the car (we’d only just left the house) and insisted we call an ambulance instead.  He was worried I might collapse on the 50-minute drive to Addenbrookes, which was understandable.

The lovely paramedics turned up and whisked me off to West Suffolk Hospital (local one, in whom I had little faith from my previous experiences in AFib #2 and #3, see previous posts!).  I had even asked if the paramedics could take me to Addenbrookes instead, but they said they had to take me to the nearest A&E (WSH is only about 15 minutes away).  I did get blue lights this time though!

WSH flatly refused to do a cardioversion (although to be fair, Addenbrookes had also said “We cannot keep doing this” on my previous visit, so they may have refused also) and, after speaking to Cardiology, decided to try intravenous flecainide and admit me on to the wards.  It was like a horror repeat show of the 2019/2020 experiences!  I let the A&E doctor know what I felt about this in a “full and frank” way, although I did also apologise that I had to say all this to her as she was merely the messenger for the cardiologists.

After an hour or so I had still not had the drugs so I spoke to a nurse who discovered that they had not been administered because “There are none in the cupboard” and nobody had thought to order them!  Talk about DIY nursing!

Eventually these were tracked down and given via an IV line and then I was admitted to the AAU ward (a sort of holding pen, where they find a place for you in the hospital).  Once there, I laid on my bed and, to be frank with you, thought about strangling the poor old lady with dementia who was raising merry hell in my ward as I was so angry already!  But you will be pleased to know I resisted that temptation!  Instead, I emailed the EP’s secretary again and told her of my plight.  She replied that the EP himself was now chasing to get me in for an ablation asap.

Therefore, I’m sure you can imagine my amazement, when at about 2 pm, I realised my heart had started beating normally – for the FIRST TIME EVER it had chemically cardioverted – the cardiologists were right and I was very glad to be wrong.  I immediately requested an ECG (more DIY nursing!) and it was ticking just fine!!!!! 

I then had to wait several hours for the cardiologists to come and see me and to get drugs (now up to 150 mg of flec twice per day!) before I was discharged, BUT I didn’t mind at all because (i) I was in NSR without a DCCV and (ii) during that time a lovely lady from Papworth phoned to say that there had just been a cancellation and was I willing to go in on the following Monday (just four days later)?  She laughed heartily when I shouted “YES!!!!” down the phone, I don’t suppose she’d ever heard someone be so excited by the offer of heart surgery before!

It has been very interesting to note the different attitudes of the two hospitals: Addenbrookes deals with huge emergencies and they seem to see a DCCV as a mere routine procedure and also seem to regard WSH as ridiculously cautious.  Whereas WSH seem to regard Addenbrookes as very cavalier in their approach.  I understand that continual DCCVs are not an answer long-term, and do not work at all or for long for some people.  But, having said that, but I do think that when you are as symptomatic as I am making me await treatment as a shuffling cripple is not a good option, although I realise there has to be a long-term solution too.  Papworth seem to concur. As much as anything else, there is the effect of deconditioning on the body which then hampers the recovery.   I want to stress I am only surmising each hospital’s attitude to the other as they are far too diplomatic to do more than express surprise or to hint as to what they feel about previous treatment – although, a well-timed arch of the eyebrow can speak a thousand words!!

On that note though the WSH A&E doctor this time was horrified when I recounted that, when I was in WSH for AFib #3, the cardiologists said that I should ring Papworth and tell them I needed to be seen more urgently! She gasped “That’s not right!” and “that’s for the clinicians to do!”!)

It was also interesting to note my different personal responses to each of these AFib episodes.  For #4, to my surprise, I was wearily resigned to my fate and remarkably calm about it, given that it meant the ablation hadn’t worked; for #5 I went downstairs and sat on the sofa and just sobbed and sobbed for about 30 minutes and for #6 I was blooming furious! And my poor hubby was just worried sick each time.  Bless him.