August of 2017 was my very first ablation. It was also the first time I had felt hope since falling ill.
I was admitted to Brigham and Women’s Hospital a few days before the ablation. I had to come off some of my medications while being monitored.
To say I was scared would be an understatement. But as scared as I was, I was equally hopeful. Sometimes when your suffering for so long you start to fantasize what it feels like to be healthy. I felt closer to that fantasy in the days leading up to my ablation. I felt that if there was one consolation to being sick for so long, it would be that I would come out of that procedure better than I had ever been.
The procedure was going to be endocardial and epicardial. Endocardial ablations are more typical. They use catheters through your groin and go up into the heart and ablate inside the chambers. Epicardial is not as common. It is when they go through the skin below the sternum and break through the protective sac surrounding the heart and ablate the surface of the heart. Epicardial comes with more risks but I was in great hands.
Before ablations they have to map out the electrical system of the heart. They do this to find the spots that are misfiring so that they can target those spots and ablate them. I HATE the mapping part. They use medications and sometimes your own defibrillator leads to induce the bad rhythms so that they can target those areas. You’re usually awake for this part because sedatives make your heart lazy and the bad rhythms they want to come out will be masked.
When I was wheeled into the EP lab I was extremely nervous. I had just said bye to my mom, which no matter what, every time I go under anesthesia it doesn’t get any easier. The room was full of monitors, full of people, it was cold. I had nurses putting loads of stickers on me including defibrillator pads.
The tears started to roll down my face as the reality of what was happening hit me like a ton of bricks. The nurse told be it would be ok. I laid there while they made my heart do the very things I was trying so desperately to avoid. That’s when it hit me. Nothing prepared me for what happened next.
I was shocked twice in a row by the external pads. Talk about pain. Talk about absolute paralyzing fear. They did their job, I was in a dangerous rhythm, but it was being induced in a controlled environment. They don’t shock people with defibrillators if they are awake because it is extremely painful and traumatizing. I guess in some cases they may have to because pain and trauma is a lot better than death, but you’re usually either unconscious or in a hospital setting sedated prior to shock. The nurse apologized and then I was out.
The procedure took about 10 hours. I don’t remember much once I woke up. I remember being in so much pain. Pain that made me beg for anything to put me out of my misery. I think it was a healthy mixture of being shocked twice by external pads, the ablation, the heart biopsy they also did, or just the fact that I had been in one position for 10 hours, with 6 more to go. You have to lay flat for 6 hours after the procedure.
The doctor that did my ablation came to see me the next day. He was getting on a flight after he left the hospital to move to Nashville to his new job. I was officially his last case in Boston.
Recovery was slow but after about two weeks I noticed a significant difference in my symptoms as in, I had none. He gave me my life back for 10 months. It was the greatest 10 months. I hiked, I kayaked, I danced, I took the stairs, I exercised. I was “normal”. I could breathe when I walked. I could carry my own laundry up the stairs. I could make my bed without having to sit 4 times due to dizziness.
Most importantly I was ready to live my life. I started applying for nursing school. I got accepted and had the choice of two summer courses that would lighten the 6 course load in September. I was working full time and taking two classes without issue. The very same class that I took by itself when I was sick a few years prior and had to be taken out of the school by ambulance on a test day because I was out of rhythm and almost passed out. My body could handle it. It was the best feeling.
In June I started to notice some PVC’s coming back more often. I ignored them because they didn’t feel terrible. They also didn’t scare me because I had convinced myself that I was fixed.
Ignoring the PVC’s didn’t make them go away.
katebinnall 