November 21, 2014
Well today things are looking a bit better. Recently I had an echocardiogram (pictures of my heart; they look a lot like a baby sonogram believe it or not). My heart doctors have determined from the echo that I can now stop wearing my portable defibrillator and that I don't need currently to have a defibrillator installed into my body. My heart is at about 45% of operating capacity now. Apparently in a healthy person the heart operates at 80%. When I entered the hospital in July my heart was at 20% or a bit less. 45% is considered a vast improvement and the thinking is that my heart will continue to improve. Occasionally my heart feels a bit queer but that is considered OK. I feel no pain.
But that has been the case since it was determined that I had Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) in July. Again to me CHF is a terrible old-fashioned phrase that should be updated, made new and improved. CHF as a phrase scared me (almost to death ! ha-ha!). I heard the word "failure" and I thought of death, my death. CHF made me think of very unhealthy old people, not me. Being "only" in my 50s I felt I was too young to die. When my heart was doing crazy things in late July I felt nothing. I felt no pain or discomfort in my heart. (Other than not being able to walk, breath or talk.) They can do wonders these days with CHF, things they could not do even 5 years ago.
When my heart rate was racing upward to crazy high levels or dropping precipitously to too slow beats I felt nothing. This atrial fibrillation or afib or abnormal heart rhythms is something they addressed when they did an ablation on me to stop/cut off/"kill" the flow of some extra electrical currents I had flowing in my heart. The ablation has been successful. In the hospital my afib caused the monitors attached to me to go haywire and caused alarms to literally go off several times. When this happened 2 doctors and 3 to 4 nurses came running into my room a number of times expecting to find me unconscious and about to die, or perhaps already dead. Instead I was always awake and I always felt nothing, no pain or discomfort, in fact I felt well.?! Go figure. Strange but true.
The other issue with my heart was the viral infection that had been sitting in my heart dormant for about a couple of years per the doctors' estimation, from some cold I had fought off a couple of years ago. They determined this from a cardiac MRI they did in the hospital. It was terrible!!!!!!!!! I had weights on my chest and all sorts of monitors and I was in the machine for two and 1/2 hours (2 1/2). It was very claustrophobic and difficult. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I chickened out twice (with all the stuff on my chest they couldn't get me into the machine properly two times; both times they got me into the machine for a couple of minutes and then had to take me out because the fit was not right. Each of these times I said no more I give up and I physically climbed to a sitting position.) The third time was the charm! Frankly the only thing that got me through it besides a great nurse was thinking about all of you, my family, each and every one of you separately and together, and Pressler, Winn and Amy.
So there you are just some thoughts for you guys. Love ME
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