Thursday, January 16, 2014

Control+ALt+Delete=Reboot Tomorrow

Well it's been three months since my ablation of my heart.  I felt amazing UNTIL I was on my way home from California on November 18.  I got off of my first flight and my ankles were so swollen, they hurt to bend I was also very short of breath.  When we arrived in Pittsburgh, after my second flight, it was worse.  I was sweating, dizzy and thought I was going to have to go immediately to the hospital.  I tried to play it cool so I would not alarm my travel companion.  Thank goodness she was the driver.  By the time I got home, I felt better.

From that day forward, I never felt good again.  I've been horribly winded by simple things, like walking to the car, getting dressed.  I am constantly hot, sweaty and clammy.  It makes me crabby and irritable, restless and gives me a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.  I am very forgetful and I sometimes have problems thinking straight.

I saw my local cardiologist on Monday, he put a 24 hour monitor on me and ordered another stress test for this coming Monday.  I had my follow up with my Pittsburgh cardiologist, yesterday.  He was the one that did my ablation.  He wants to cardiovert me tomorrow.  It's pretty much a reboot of my heart to get it into regular rhythm and see if I can stay there.  So tomorrow morning to Pittsburgh I go.  I already had this procedure a year ago in December.

If this doesn't work then they will do the ablation again with a second doctor, who will be able to use a different catheter that can try to cauterize the back wall of my heart, which is where all of my electrical activity is coming from.  They couldn't do that with the original ablation because they would have burned my esophagus.

So, wish me luck and if I've been crabby, impatient towards you, snapped or just not seemed like myself, please know it's not you.  It's all me and I hope to be back to my jovial self soon.

1 comment:

Joan said...

Holy Moly! Hope you're feeling better Rhonda...know I'm thinking about you.