Adventures of A Racing Heart - Afib Adventure number 3 and a First Ablation! (MARCH 2020)

Adventures of a Racing Heart - Afib Adventure number 3

By this time the HHT (see separate post) nosebleeds were becoming so bad I was losing up to 300 mls of blood per day and becoming close to anaemic and feeling dreadful again.  I was ill all through February (some sort of virus, probably not helped by anaemia) and then in early March I had a Septodermoplasty (a skin graft into the nose) to help with the nosebleeds.  This involved about 10 hours without liquid as it was a general anaesthetic and 36 hours later, I went back into AFib.

I was taken back to the local hospital and back to the CCU.  I was told I would be cardioverted electrically if the drugs didn’t work.  In a weird Groundhog Day sort of procedure, they again waited too long to get into the 48-hour window where DCCV can be done without you being on anti-coagulants.  But this time they were reluctant to do a TOE as my right nostril was bunged up due to the skin graft operation and all the packing.  So, after eight days (a mere 8, this time!) I was once again discharged in a right old mess. 

Like the previous autumn I could barely walk and was weak, dizzy and totally fatigued.  My treatment was terrible – the doctors told ME to phone Papworth and ask them to bring forward my ablation!  Funny enough, hospitals do not listen to patients only to clinicians – who would have thought!  And by now, the Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic was in full spin in the UK.  The hospital had a one visitor policy, companies were telling people to work from home and only the Government didn’t seem to be taking it very seriously…  (Prime Minister Boris Johnson still shaking hands in direct contradiction of the nationwide medical advice…?!).  This also meant the hospital was no longer doing cardioversions and could not tell me when they would be able to offer me one! 

At this point, we felt we had no choice but to go private.  I had a telephone conversation with Dr Finn, who also works at Papworth and he was amazing – he said immediately that I could not carry on like that and he would talk to Papworth and see if he could get an urgent ablation.  I was willing to pay for a private cardioversion as a stop-gap, but he said that was not possible due to Covid. 

In the event, he arranged for me to have an urgent cardioversion at Papworth (though I did have to wait four weeks for the anti-coagulants to take effect) and this time I recovered a lot quicker.  Papworth actually wanted to do an ablation straight away, but that was not possible due to Covid.

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Ablation Numero Uno!

And then just four weeks after Cardioversion number 3, Papworth phoned to ask if I would be willing to go in at short notice.  I said yes and was told to present myself in 48 hours’ time.  Argh!!!!!

The ablation was straightforward and I felt great afterwards, but it took a long time to recover.  It was months before I could brisk walk a few miles and I didn’t run for five months.  I did buy an electric bike and that was a god send before I could ride a ‘normal ‘bike which I did after about four months.

I was gradually getting fitter when in February of 2021 when I suddenly became extremely fatigued.  Whether I had tried to do too much (I was back to about 75% of my AFib levels) or whether my thyroid was being overdosed was never discovered….

 


Terminology

Atrial fibrillation (AF or AFib) and Atrial flutter (AFl) are two different types of heart arrythmias.  

Lone AFib or AFl means there is no structural reason for it that is, nothing obviously wrong with the function of the heart.

DCCV - Direct Current Cardioversion.  Basically, they stick pads on you and zap you with electricity.  This stuns the heart so much it stops beating.  Hopefully, it then restarts beating (otherwise you are in BIG trouble) and, better still, it beats with a proper rhythm (NSR).

NSR - Normal sinus rhythm - what most people have! It's doing what it should, a nice regular lup-doop sound.

999 - emergency services phone number in the UK.  Same as 911 in USA or 112 in Europe.

Flecainide - an anti-arrythmia drug.  A major side-effect is its tendency to cause further arrythmias.  One of the only drugs I seem to tolerate well. 

TTRMP - I made this up!  Time To Recovery Medical Profession 

TTRRL - I made this up too! Time To Recovery Real Life!

GP – family doctor (General Practitioner)

TOE – trans-oesophageal echocardiogram (to check for a blood clot in the heart) which could cause a stroke).

HR – Heart Rate

Papworth – Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge.  The UK’s premier Heart and Lung facility.

 

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