Heart surgery tomorrow. Need good vibes!

[lbgbvb]

Okey doke, the day is almost here!

I'm having a cardiac ablation tomorrow to cure lifelong SVT. In short, they are going to use catheters to get a good look at the ticker, map the pathways on a screen, shoot me up with some "adrenaline-like" substance to trigger an episode, and then burn away the extra paths that are causing me trouble.

Its a fairly minor procedure, likened to getting your tubes tied. Its actually the same principle (burning something so it closes). Still...its my heart. Ugh. I am not a happy camper right now.

I'm looking forward to being SVT-free (heart rate doubles for no good reason until I bear down to stop it). Its been affecting my workouts for quite some time now.

But...ugh...its my heart. Why can't I be having surgery on something that can be chopped off if anything goes wrong? Worst-case scenario, I could wake up with a pacemaker. But that's very rare.

I know the reality is that this is a very safe procedure, and the benefits of having it far outweigh the risks.

But I am allowed to be scared, right?

[Raevn]

Good vibes you say?

 

Here you go!

 

 

But I am allowed to be scared, right?

 

 

Really, it would be wierd if you weren't at least nervous about the surgery. I mean, it IS your heart after all!

 

All I can say is don't work yourself up too much over it, get the operation done, recover, and enjoy your complication-free workouts!

[lbgbvb]

Thanks! I love the Beach Boys!

My cardiologist and electrophysiologist are both rooting for me. We're all runners so they know how important it is for me to have this done and be able to run more than 10 minutes before my heart feels like its going to explode. Nothing functional is going wrong it just short-circuits from time to time. I have a very healthy heart otherwise.

Still...ugh. Short circuit. No disassemble!!! LOL

[Fishface]

I think you're actually being incredibly brave and calm, even if you're not feeling like you are.  It's good that you know that it's a procedure the doctors' are confident about.  You've got a positive outcome in mind - you can see yourself doing your workout without having an episode so that's a good motivation.  You know that complications are rare but you've mentally prepared that you'd deal with it in the unlikely event that  it happened.  So you're in great mental shape for this procedure, and that attitude can only help your recovery from it.  

 

You are allowed to be scared - if you weren't scared would be a sign you had something wrong with your brain!  But you are also right to be optimistic and to keep reminding yourself of the facts.  I'll be thinking of you tomorrow and sending those good vibes your way.  

[chaosgundam]

Good luck! My mother had a similar operation and it went smoothly! Just relax! You'll be fine.

[moomin]

Hey lbgbvb! Found your thread again!

Best of luck and good on you for going forward with the surgery! 

 

And this is for your motivation:

[Basement Cat]

Good luck! You are incredibly brave and you will do fine!

[Frost of the Gloaming]

Good luck and yes it's normal to be scared

[lbgbvb]

I'm just so frightened - I have convinced myself that whatever will go wrong, totally will. Even completely irrational things like, "You know, if there's an earthquake, those catheters are going to rip right through my arteries and splash blood all over Dexter-like....oh wait...what if my surgeon IS Dexter? What have I done wrong in my life? Would he know about them?"

Whew. I'm trying to tell myself, "You know, if you're worrying about earthquakes and Dexters, then the surgery really isn't that big of a deal at all."

I think I am phobic to anesthesia. I'd be frightened of heart surgery even if I were awake its just...going to sleep is the pits. Knowing, "This is it! The end! Goodbye cruel world...just in case!" I wish I could stay awake! Some people are afforded the opportunity - not me, unfortunately.

Ahh, but the benefits of doing so. No more heaviness, no more feeling "unstable" no more seeing stars, no more lightheadedness. No more laying on the side of the road because an SVT attacked during a run. No more. I can finally live - I mean, I've never not had SVT. I'm not sure that I know how to live without it - to actually go on with life as if nothing is wrong, because nothing IS wrong. I can even mow the lawn, give my kiddo a piggyback ride. OMG, I can blow my nose without my heart going flippity floop. I am ready. Scared, but ready.

They've promised me I can have a sedative after I'm admitted and signed all the paperwork. I've already instructed them to give me "the equivalent of a drink just to take the edge off," but I think I will need "the equivalent of five."

Brave? I don't think so. The only bravery in me is the principle that I am going through with this procedure to ensure I can keep exercising - for life. I wanna go greater distances. I wanna get better times. I don't wanna sit on the sofa instead with this "doctor's excuse" that I have a heart condition. (even though that's what my family has asked me to do instead. Sheesh)

Not brave, not a chance. As soon as the fella comes in and says, "Hi! I'm Billy McPeterpants, your anesthesi..." I am going to start to cry. Being put to sleep feels like I'm getting a lethal injection. Gives me the creepolas.

[andygates]

So how did it go?

[jdanger]

Fun fact: I had four of these when I was a kid and one was experimental at the time! Ticker buddies! Hope all went well.

[lbgbvb]

It all went horribly wrong. The procedure was a failure and for the time being I'm worse off than before!

Was in surgery about 4 hours. I woke up and turned to look at the recovery nurse and say "hello," but instead, it was the surgeon who was shaking me and holding my hand. Once I realized it was him, I knew something bad had happened. He told me the extra pathway is located outside the heart where catheters cannot go. He said there is "another procedure" available, but "we'll talk about that later." He wants to try medication as treatment first, which apparently is less risky than this mysterious "other procedure."

I'm still tired from the anesthesia as well, but this medication is the pits. I left the hospital with BP 90/50 and a pulse of 40. I'm very tired, like I just got over the flu or something. Now I understand why they didn't want me on medication in the first place - this is like laying around with a pulse rate so slow it feels like its going to just STOP. Otherwise though I feel fine. So let's hope the tiredness is just that nasty anesthetic leaving my system and hope my BP and pulse raise. Then I should be feeling quite like myself.

On the bright side, perhaps a little dramatic, the surgeon tagged along to my room as I was being wheeled down and he petted me, hugged me, and promised he was going to fix it.

On the downside, he requested I come back for a stress test in a month. The first test I did, I completed Level 6 and wowed them all. I mentioned it to the surgeon, about how well I did on the first test...he shrugged and said "I'll see you in a month." I know what that means...my endurance is gone, isn't it? At least as long as I'm on medication. Its gone.

So now I'm really depressed - sort of wondering if I am going to be like this forever. Hopefully the body just needs to adjust to the medication. Otherwise, I went to have surgery to make my quality of life better and ended up making it worse.

[TimG]

I know some things about medication and it's effects: sometimes they tend to exhaust you big time :/

 

Wish you the very best in your recovery! 

[ChristArtist]

It all went horribly wrong. The procedure was a failure and for the time being I'm worse off than before!

Was in surgery about 4 hours. I woke up and turned to look at the recovery nurse and say "hello," but instead, it was the surgeon who was shaking me and holding my hand. Once I realized it was him, I knew something bad had happened. He told me the extra pathway is located outside the heart where catheters cannot go. He said there is "another procedure" available, but "we'll talk about that later." He wants to try medication as treatment first, which apparently is less risky than this mysterious "other procedure."

I'm still tired from the anesthesia as well, but this medication is the pits. I left the hospital with BP 90/50 and a pulse of 40. I'm very tired, like I just got over the flu or something. Now I understand why they didn't want me on medication in the first place - this is like laying around with a pulse rate so slow it feels like its going to just STOP. Otherwise though I feel fine. So let's hope the tiredness is just that nasty anesthetic leaving my system and hope my BP and pulse raise. Then I should be feeling quite like myself.

On the bright side, perhaps a little dramatic, the surgeon tagged along to my room as I was being wheeled down and he petted me, hugged me, and promised he was going to fix it.

On the downside, he requested I come back for a stress test in a month. The first test I did, I completed Level 6 and wowed them all. I mentioned it to the surgeon, about how well I did on the first test...he shrugged and said "I'll see you in a month." I know what that means...my endurance is gone, isn't it? At least as long as I'm on medication. Its gone.

So now I'm really depressed - sort of wondering if I am going to be like this forever. Hopefully the body just needs to adjust to the medication. Otherwise, I went to have surgery to make my quality of life better and ended up making it worse.

 

I know you don't know me, but I was touched by your posts.

I am so sorry to hear this.

 

In many ways I can relate to this...though not having had surgery.  

I am not allowed to get my heart rate up to the optimum level to build endurance...or my tricuspid valve back flushes and causes nasty symptoms, and infections.  My service dog alerts to my higher than needful HR, and sits me down.

I live with a HRM whenever I want to go for a walk, much less train for a tri.

They cannot reproduce the effect in order to 'fix' it.  And, as I get older, my aerobic intensity levels go down....

 

BUT - here's the upside for you...they KNOW what it is...and they have a fix...and you are in good shape!

Give it a month...let them rest your heart....and then, figure it out.  Do what you can.

And, It's taken me upto a week to get rid of anesthesia...and they weren't knocking me out for my heart....

 

Detox...rest...you had a major operation...then pick it up where and when you can.

Thank God you have runners for doctors!  They will GET it!

 

hugs

[lbgbvb]

It just keeps getting worse!

I found myself experiencing chest pains and couldn't breathe. While I tried to walk around the house, I could feel my heart thumping but not hard enough to complete the task of walking, does that make sense? My heart felt like it "wasn't trying." It felt too slow - too slow and "subdued." I tried to make it to lie down but couldn't walk to the bed because my heart just wasn't giving me the "get up and go" to do it. The more I panicked about it, the more my chest hurt and the less I could breathe. Felt like breathing through a snorkel.

So I had to call an ambulance and go back to the hospital. On the way to the hospital the EMT in the back geeked out on me about the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic, but science wasn't my favorite class in school. I remembered the words but not what they meant. Something about the sympathetic speeds you up and the para slows you down - my para was working harder than the sympa, he theorized. However once they hooked me up to all of the monitors, my vitals were okay, the only thing that was "off" was I had a heart rate in the 40s.

At the ER they flushed the medication out of my system to see what would happen. All vitals were fine other than HR, but once the medication was gone, it raised to the 60s and I felt much better.

So they had me take another dose of medication so they could monitor exactly what happens. There was a pattern - I'd be in the 50's or 60s before getting a chest pain. A wave of pain radiating across the chest, lasting a few seconds, then my heart rate would plummet back into the 40s. Then I'd move around in bed to get comfy or something and my HR would raise to 57 on the dot. At 57, I'd get another pain, and the HR would plummet back to 40. Then someone would come in to talk to me, I'd talk back, HR go back to 57 on the dot, I'd get a pain, plummet back, etc.

They said my medication is a defibrillator without the paddles. If my HR rises, I get a "shock," which is my chest pain. I shouldn't feel it but they suspected I'm probably still sensitive from surgery. They said some people stop dead in their tracks, some feel like they're getting tased, and some get muscle spams. But otherwise I was in good shape I just didn't know how the medication worked, so when it did at home, I panicked and received more shocks than usual - so the side effects were exacerbated. Okay, that did make me feel much better about it. I had a panic attack on a subdued nervous system.

I felt much better yesterday though still really tired and nauseated. A few chest pains but nothing frightening now that I know what they are. I wonder why they didn't tell me in the hospital when they put me on it?

The muscle spasms started that evening when I went home. Was just lying around trying to sleep when my right arm flew out to the side and almost as soon as I realized what happened, my head snapped to the other side like I was slapped by a ghost! Okay, great. Now I'm going to look like I need an exorcist half the time.

I'm going to try to stay optimistic about all of this. I am supposed to call my doc today to see if he wants me to continue taking this, or perhaps he knows this is just temporary and will go away once my body gets used to it.
 

I definitely hope he says this just takes some getting used to. A week or so of discomfort but it'll all work out, I hope. Otherwise I just don't know what to do because no option is looking good at the moment. I can't just leave my condition alone - that's why I opted for surgery in the first place. Medication doesn't seem to be going well, and two cardiologists (including this one) didn't want me doing it anyway. Surgery didn't work, and now we're looking at more invasive procedures though he has yet to explain them to me. He has only told me that if my medication doesn't work, he is going to up the dose as high as he can UNTIL more surgery comes into play.

I don't want my imagination to get the better of me, but I can only imagine this "other procedure" he won't talk about  and would rather steadily increase my meds instead - it must be either open-heart surgery or a pacemaker.

Still, I'm trying to stay optimistic for I can't remember much about what happened in the hospital (I don't know WHAT they put me out with, but it was some serious stuff) I distinctly remember him following me and holding my hand and promising to fix it.

[jdanger]

If you haven't already seek another (third?) opinion. All doctors, especially surgeons, are not created equal. I haven't heard of the drug you are taking but to not be informed of how that works is pretty bad IMO.

 

I was a pretty hard case too. Became unresponsive to meds pretty early even at heavy doses and attacks were automatic ER trips as the standard suppression methods just stopped working. I went through two long ablations, one eight hours and the other twelve, with a pretty much quack surgeon before we sought a second opinion. First guy wanted to go in again and do whatever he was doing for twenty hours and we said yeah, no. Second guy went in, made some change but knew he couldn't do any better due to some of the issues being too close the AV node. He pulled out at four hours and after recovery told us about a doctor across the country doing an experimental version of the ablation so we booked tickets and off we went. That last one took ten hours but after the recovery I was cured of all SVT/WPW symptoms and my only lasting damage is a little quirky QRS wave. I was 14 at my last operation and I was diagnosed at around 7.

 

So long story short, get another opinion and hang in there. It's a difficult road you're on but there's a lot of hope out there.

[lbgbvb]

Oh, thank you! That's really encouraging! I didn't want to be the only challenging case out there.

Broke out in a rash from my chest to my chin today - doc wanted to see me right away and he discontinued the medication. Thank goodness. My gut told me I didn't like it! I was hoping it was just a phase but I knew deep down I didn't like the sensations and side-effects. Thanks to the Rash Fairy and her itchy goodness. I owe her one!

Doc said to give it a month to detox and get myself back to Square One before seeing what the next step is. Its going to be more medication,but less aggressive than what I was taking.

I know I'm thrilled, even for the time being. I didn't think anything could be worse than living with WPW but yeah, now I know the meds were worse.

[ChristArtist]

still praying for you. Glad You have someone who has been through - this. I Second the second or third opinion!

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