Had an interesting week
Ten years ago I had some problems with erratic heartbeats that was diagnosed as atrial fribulation. The upper chamber of the heart goes into a quivering state and makes the heartbeats go kind of crazy. It is not dangerous in itself, but if it continues, it can form blood clots which can be extremely dangerous.
My first incident was pretty bad, so went to the ER, and got it stabilized and got to a cardiologist who put me on some medications that eventually controlled it. Once in a while it came back for a short period in the evenings, usually only 20 minutes to an hour, and then would stop. A couple of times it lasted longer, but the docs got control of it.
For the past 6-7 years, have had almost no episodes at all. Then last Tuesday morning at 12:30 am, awoke with very severe fribulation. Heart was racing, very dizzy, etc so took a pill the doc gave me for such occasions, and went back to bed. It continued all night, so by 5 am we decided better get to the ER.
They got me in pretty quickly, called my cardiologist, and to my surprise, she showed up by 7:30. Checked me out and said would have to be admitted to the hospital, so they took us up to a room there.
At ll:30 pm got up to go to the bathroom. Last thing I remember, was sitting on the toilet. Suddenly I fell incredibly dizzy and weak. The next thing I remember was being lifted up off the floor by a male nurse while five other nurses were all around me. I first asked why there were blood drops on the tile floor, then noticed that blood was dripping from my forehead! Could not understand what was happening, but they all picked me up and rushed me to a bed.
I had been wearing a portable device that sends info to the monitor at the nurses’ station, and apparently when I fainted, the alarm went off and they called a “Code Blue” and all those people rushed in to get me.
They put me on a defribulator and shot me full of some drug that shocked the heart back into better rhythm. I was soaked with sweat and weak as a kitten, but once they got the heart responding, they covered me up and rushed me up to Intensive Care.
Then after getting me hooked up, I checked my pulse and realized that the damn frib was still going, almost 12 hours after it had started, but did not feel too bad. Then suddenly got dizzy again, so buzzed and they had to hook me up all over again and give me another shot, as heart rate had dropped to about 30. Not much fun, but sure had a lot of attention!
Some time later the fribulation finally stopped, so I believe I have found a new way to control it: just do a swan dive onto a tile floor landing on your head. I had a really huge bump on my forehead with a big scab, more bruises on my eyebrow and around my eye, so I still don’t know what I hit on my way down. Today have a beautiful shiner, so am telling people my 5-foot wife did it and am charging her with spousal abuse.
Now the interesting part. A nurse later told me that when they printed out the strip of paper showing what happened, that I had been out for about 45 seconds all together, and I I had flat-lined for 24 seconds. No heartbeat at all, actually dead, I guess!
A couple of people have asked if I saw the white light off in the distance, but told them all I saw was flames.
Later they moved me back to a diagnostic ward room. Every nurse I saw from then on was aware of what happened to me. Guess it was quite exciting, and glad I don’t recall to much of it.
So, they decided I had to have a pacemaker put in, and put on a regimen of warfarin (an anti-coagulent). The pacemaker was put in Thursday afternoon and I finally got home yesterday (Fri) about 5 pm.
I suppose that if something like this is going to happen, best place to be is in a hospital. If I’d been on top of a mountain somewhere, would still be there with the buzzards circling. I’m 78 but climb some mountain every day. At least I did.
Feel pretty weak now, but guess everything will be OK.
The device is inserted on my left chest just below the collarbone. They then ran two wires from it with a cathater to both the atrium and the ventricle, and screw it into the inside of the heart wall. Have to be careful into new tissue generates around the wires to hold them in.
Other than that, everything is fine.
Oh yeah, every day in the hospital I heard the speaker coming out with a little lulaby several times. I finally asked about that and they said they did that every time a baby was born. Cool.
I wonder if they play the Funeral March whenever somebody dies?