Continued………… It was official; I was an enigma and would be reminded of this often in the years ahead.

                   So now it was a waiting game and after two weeks they sent me home to convalesce until the other tests could be done. There was to be complete rest. That was easily accomplished. I was emotionally and physically weary from the events that had taken place. Eating became a chore all its own. I was unaware of the amount of energy needed to digest food. Maybe there was truth in the old adage “do not swim for at lease an hour after eating”. Cleaning house was never one of my favorite things to do. However, watching the dirt and grime build up was not all that uplifting either. Good days involved sitting on the deck with the sun pouring down on me. I read a lot of books and tried to be a good patient. My husband took some time off and we did a lot of staring at each other. Needless to say he was more than ready to go back to work after two weeks. Other than taking an overdose of pills the first day home and causing my blood pressure to drop to “60 over 40” everything went quite well.   

                   After my first of many angiograms and scores of other tests the doctor was ready to tell the bad and the good. Because of the substantial damage to the left ventricle at least two of the electrical sensors were damaged. My heart rhythm was erratic and would in all likelihood stay that way.  They discovered a collapsed artery witch they felt was the cause of the heart attack. Luckily all the other arteries were alive and well. It was nice to hear something positive for a change. It was mentioned that they had gone back in time to my father’s heart attack twenty seven years earlier and found a similar turn of events. He had died, I survived. Thanks to heart research and the new medications of my time.

                   The main problem now was finding a drug that would sufficiently control the tachycardia that persisted. Because the change of rhythm started in the lower chamber it wasn’t considered to be life threatening. Still, we needed to control them because in reality they could cause another attack at any given time.  

                   Erratic fluttering in my chest became a daily thing. It was unsettling at first. I would stop and find a resting spot, sit quietly and listen to my body.  These episodes lasted anywhere from five minutes to half an hour. Anything past that always led to a visit to emergency. They would administer oxygen and wait for it to pass. In the beginning I would wonder if this time would be the end. Was my time here finished? Would I be found by my children after a long school day? Although I always tried to stay calm shaking these thoughts from my mind was never easy. I would feel the anxiety building and it would intensify the feeling of my heart rate which soared to its own music. Panic always sat on my doorstep and for a long time all of my thoughts went to keeping it a bay. These episodes drained me of energy and I always felt like I had just run marathon.

                   Over time I learned to lie quietly and free my mind of thought. I would enter a dreamlike state. I concentrated solely on the reactions of my body to the unnatural rhythm. Sometimes I could visually view my heart as if it were separate from the other organs in my body. I would soothe it with soft whisperings, encouraging the muscle to settle back into a comfortable rhythm. The more relaxed I could make myself the easier the transition back to an acceptable heart rate occurred.      

                   We tried every arrhythmia medication available but the tachycardia persisted. At this rate my heart would eventually wear out. It was one of my long tachycardia attacks that enabled my doctor to finally map my heart to find out exactly what signals were being sent where and why. There was a relatively new drug on the market for arrhythmias that they had been testing at the research hospital in London, Ontario with great success. My doctor felt I could benefit from this treatment. He contacted his mentor, Dr. Kostuk, who at that time was in charge of the heart unit in London. They felt it was in my best interest to fly to London so Dr. Kostuk could oversee the administration of the drug. 

Continued………………

Quotation

“Let go of the notion that things shouldn’t be that way. They are that way!”

Wayne W. Dyer

          

Tags: atrial ventricular, Heart Disease, Heart Failure, icd, left coronary artery, tachycardia, wide complex

This entry was posted by Debbie on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 3:01 PM and is filed under My Heart Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.