Long sordid story of my dying last Tues and my resurection

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. :smiley:

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. :slight_smile:

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?

Thursday pm to Friday pm – just one day’s hospitalization after they put in the pacemaker? Wow.

Glad you’re still with us. Sorry you didn’t see the white light, but I’ve never been sure whether you’re supposed to go toward it or away from it, so maybe it’s just as well. :slight_smile:

Glad you’re still here too. You can’t really die and stay dead - you have a very important role to fill as the SDMB’s oldest poster! (that was you, right?)

And you still haven’t mastered Windows XP. I wonder if it’s trying to kill you, though :wink: I bet that heart monitor runs on XP. Curses!

Next time you go climb a mountain leave us a note. Some of us would like to see the buzzards!

[nitpick]It’s fibrillation. [/nitpick]
Glad to see you’re still with us, sorry about the shiner and all. Nurse will have to fill out a whole report on that–ugh. (it’s routine,but still a PIA, plus you got hurt).

We have the lullaby thing too; I like it. I work in adult acute care (you would have been one of my pts, most likely). No, no hospital plays the funeral march…yikes.

anyway, it’s nice to hear the cheerful baby song at times.

Best of luck with your new pacer!

You know what this means, right?

You’re a zombie.

Time to start cracking skulls and eating brains.

Nah… it means they sent him back to take care of unfinished business. He’s got all kinds of freaky supernatural powers and shit now, just like the Burger King. We’d best watch our step with ol’ Klondike.

Wow, what a close call. I’m glad that you seem to be doing better now and hope you can get back to climbing your mountains soon. :slight_smile:

Phew! That sounds like a scary close call. It’s nice to know we didn’t lose you for good. Did you get doctor’s orders to stay off the mountains for a while?

:smack: When will they get a spell checker here? Thanks for the correction, I think I have misspelled it several different ways.

Also thanks for the good wishes everybody, got a lot of well-needed chuckles from reading the posts.

What a scary thought, that MS might be the software in my pacemaker. I’m doomed.

Watch out, the Zombie is coming!

Neat trick! Most of us only die once and that’s the end of it. But you’ve got a job to do!

(I wonder what it is…)

Glad you’re back!

no – it means heaven wouldn’t take him, and hell was afraid he’d take over. :wink:

Wierd. I’ve been meaning for the last couple of days to right a post on a similiar problem/experience I had. Actually got on just now to do it and your post was at the top. Glad your doing all right though!

Write dammit.

So much for posting without preview.

Klondike, you definitely win the prize for biggest adventure of the week! Don’t think anyone is going to top that. Glad you’re home.

:eek:
Glad you’re OK now!!!

Now I must ask: was one of those playing during the 24 seconds you were “elsewhere”? If so, is there a baby nearby who has half of your soul? I sense a Steven King novel in the making… :smiley:

Did any of the docs mention radiofrequency (RF) ablation? They take like this 1920’s style death ray and zip the errant electrical channels. Here’s an article that suggests that it’s a highly effective procedure. Don’t know strictly speaking if it’s an alternative to the pacemaker.

Good luck to you.

Did the flames look anything like this?

Thanks, Sal, I’d heard about it but the article was helpful. The key seems to be that it is used when meds don’t do the job, so it is something to keep in mind if needed. As the digitalis that had been doing the job for years obviously didn’t work any more, am starting on a different med (beta-blocker) that hopefully will work.

Never a dull moment. :slight_smile:

What are you talking about? When in doubt, just [ctl]+[alt]+[del] and you’ll be fine. Where did they put the keyboard?

You’re my hero.