Adventures of A Racing Heart AFib #10 (JAN 2022)

 

Adventures of A Racing Heart AFib #10 - DCCV #8 - (JAN 2022)

 

I recovered from AFib #9 in record time, probably because it self-converted after just four hours, a new record!  I was not quite as strong as before a week later but soon got that back and spent the Christmas break doing lots of walking.  I had also started running again in November and got as far as week four which was three sessions of between 7 and 11 sets of RUN 1.5 MINUTES/WALK 1 MINUTE.  I was even a bit quicker than I was after my first ablation so that was pleasing.  Of course, when I say run, I really mean a slow shuffle!

In the last entry in my training diary for 2021 I wrote, “Feel strong” for the first time in probably two years.  And in my personal diary I jokingly wrote that I felt good and strong, “so it must be time for something to go wrong”!

New Years Eve I sat crunched over on the floor and got the most horrendous heart burn which came back during my cycle on 2 Jan and my run on 3 Jan.  It was one of those runs where you just feel awful the whole time, like your lungs are too small, if you get my drift. But as runners know this happens from time to time although the chest pain was scary due to my hyper-paranoia from having AFib.  But it definitely felt like heartburn and was not worsened or improved by exercise or rest. In fact, sitting straight helped it which suggested heartburn all the way.

I had a knap on the sofa on the afternoon of 3^rd Jan and after 15 minutes kip I walked upstairs and put some stuff down on the bed and then turned to go into the bathroom where I noticed my heart was trying to burst out of my chest.  It’s so weird, when I am in AFib you can see my whole left chest/rib/breast area just bouncing around!

I was determined it would self-convert this time and so took a flecainide tablet.  My husband insisted we should drive to the Big Teaching Hospital but I refused.  In fact (so embarrassing!) I sat on the sofa and sobbed like a toddler “I don’t want to go to hospital! I don’t want to go” while he comforted me (like a toddler) with soothing words like “I know you don’t, but the doctor said you have to when it is fast like this”.  And so, we did.

It was a Bank Holiday and so they were short staffed so they gave me an ECG and told me to wait in the waiting area for 30 minutes.  Then another ECG.  Meanwhile these darned heartburn pains were getting worse as my HR flipped from the 135-bpm mark to over 170 bpm.  I was struggling to breathe so, in a most un-British way, I called the nurse over and told her I was in pain.  The other nurse came over and checked on me and then they rushed off to tell the doctors I was worsening. 

Suddenly a wheelchair was produced and I was told I was going into the Resus Dept “just in case”!  That’s never happened before!  MY HR was now as fast as 189 (a new record for me) and it felt awful.  They had already taken the blood tests and now the nurse began sticking the defib pads on me straight away saying “Nobody has said so yet but you will need a cardioversion so we may as well be ready”.  Also, I’m sure they were thinking ahead in case I had a heart attack!

When the doctor came, I gave her my printed saga which I always take and she read through it (“very helpful”) and spoke to the cardiologists before asking me if I wanted another cardioversion or whether I wanted to try drugs first.  I said there was little point as none of the drugs have ever worked (oh, the flecainide once) so she said she would gather her team and do it.

There was just her, another female doctor and a male nurse (I love that, both the doctors were women and the nurse was a man – how great to see those traditional roles reversed, by the way).  They injected me with a huge syringe full of a milky fluid which she said was the usual sedative (propofol?).  Then they said they would be back shortly and THEY ALL LEFT ME AND SHUT THE GLASS DOORS!

I was horrified!  You can’t leave a sedated patient alone! What if I choke!  If I die nobody will know that I was left alone!  And by this time rather than feeling sleepy I was feeling wide awake!  Now I was thinking that they were going to cardiovert me while I was awake and it was gonna hurt like heck! Or they were going to have to try and calculate how much more sedative to give me on top of the sedative I’d already had and might get it wrong! I thought this was a good hospital!  Now they were leaving me all abandoned!  I laid there for a while – maybe five minutes or more – before the doctor returned and asked how I felt.  I was a bit offy and replied that I was very wide-awake and when exactly were they planning to do this cardioversion?

She looked bewildered and replied that it had been done and it had worked first time!  Now it was my turn to be bewildered because obviously I KNEW it had NOT been done!  She assured me that not only had it been done but that afterwards I had been totally wide awake and fully responsive before they had left me alone to sleep off the remainder of the sedative!!!!!

Boy, was I confused!  I just kept asking her over and over if it had REALLY been done (even though I had noticed right from the time when I first came to that my HR was only 78!) and she kept insisting that it had been done and I back in NSR!

She was flabbergasted that I did not remember anything and apologised for leaving me but said I had been fully compos mentis at that point.  Even spookier she then said that after my previous DCCV I had talked about Italy and joined in even when asleep.  I just stared at her with total suspicion and asked how she knew that.  Her reply was that I had told them all about it when I woke up after this latest one!  And I didn’t remember a thing about any of it.! Apparently, I was chatting 19-to-the-dozen, which sounds like me!  So, when they said they would be back shortly it was after the DCCV!  Weird or what!

I was discharged at 11 pm so it was a late night by the time Hubby arrived to collect me and the hour drive home.

Once again, I had emailed my EP from my bed and begged for help.  The next morning, I got an email from his secretary saying the booking team would be in contact with me “shortly”.  I began to get hopeful I would get my third ablation in February…

Several hours later, the Papworth booking team did call and he offered me an appointment for the following week!!  So, what did I say? “OH, I’ll have to check my diary” before realising everything could be cancelled!! What an idiot! Even more shocking the ablation would be the following Monday just six days away….

Abbreviations

HR                  Heart Rate

EP                   Electrophysician (specialist in heart rhythm problems)

DCCV             electrical shock to stop and restart the heart in NSR

NSR                Normal Sinus rhythm

AFib               Atrial Fibrillation – an arrythmia of the heart.  It’s basically not going a nice regular lup-dup but rather a lup,lup, dup,lup, lup, lup, dup and in my case something like 150+ bpm, rather than my usual 50-70.  Doesn’t feel good, my whole rib cage vibrates and I cannot breathe well or walk very well.

BPM               beats per minute