My Atrial Ablation

Hospitals. I hate them. I've spent way too much time in them over the last year, and though it's only been about five days, that's plenty. I know that's nothing for a lot of people, and for them, I have complete empathy. But for me, five days is way too much.

I lost another day of my life to a hospital just last weekend. After a year of increasingly aggravating atrial fibrillation, I finally consented to have an atrial ablation on, you guessed it, April Fool's Day. Serves me right, I guess, for all the cruel jokes I've played over the years.

The ablation is a procedure in which, basically, the doctor goes into your heart and either burns or freezes the openings of your pulmonary veins, creating scar tissue over which the rogue electricity can't pass, thus (hopefully) eliminating the a-fib. They don't usually cut you open. They go in through insertion points in your groin. Yes. Ow.

My brother-in-law, Paul, had this done several years ago. My cousin, Lisa, had it done earlier this year. My wife told me last year that I needed to do it. So did my sister. But did I listen? No, not until the procedure cost me another $2000 instead of costing me nothing.

I know. Knucklehead is my middle name.

Update: (I've been asked to say here that Julie and Kelly were right. OK. You were right. Now let me out of the full nelson.)

The whole affair didn't really start out like we'd planned. Kelly and I showed up at the hospital at 6:30am (which was hard enough) and were promptly told that I'd be spending the night there. This was contrary to what the surgeon's office told me a week before. Good thing I'd packed the jammies, just in case. I don't really fancy walking around the hospital with my ugly tushy hanging out of those horrible hospital gowns.

My doctor wasn't long in coming in to visit. He's a very nice guy, named Dr. Wish. I just wish he'd told me everything BEFORE I got there. Yes, I know. Cheap joke.

After signing my life away (almost literally), he told me that I'd be having a TEE done. That's short for Transesophogeal Echo, which is a camera stuck down my throat to look for existing clots. Barring those, they'd do the ablation.

A painful IV and several more doctors later, I was in the OR getting that ugly tushy up onto the operating table. I sat there with my toes on some warm blankets and the anesthesiologist said, "OK, I'm going to start putting this into your IV." I said, "Do you want me to lay down first?" He said, "Nope, no one's fallen off of the table yet."

Then, total blankness.

You might think I meant to write blackness there, but I did not. It wasn't blackness. It was blankness. I remember nothing. It is a space in my life about which I have absolutely no recollection. No memories. No blackness. No dreams. Nothing. Just blank.

They tell me I was on the table for about five hours. Considering the bruises on my groin and chest, it's a good thing it is blank. I'm sure it was plenty painful. It still is.

When the doctor came into the waiting room to tell Kelly that it all went swimmingly, she asked the same question I would have asked. "Did you find the place?"

Blank stare. "What do you mean?"

"Did you find the place that was causing the a-fib and burn it?"

"We didn't do that," he replied.

This response, while accurate, caused my darling wife to nearly break down. She thought they'd either done the wrong procedure on me or operated on the wrong patient.

Needless to say, she was not happy. Just ask Beth, the first nurse I remember after waking up. She sat with her arms around Kelly endeavoring to calm her fears and assure her that I was all right.

Of course, I don't remember any of this. Kelly tells me that I was awake during some of it, but again, I was in the big blankness. The first thing I do really remember is Dr. Del Negro (another of the surgeons) coming in to tell me that I couldn't play basketball for three months, and that I was probably at that age when I should probably give up competitive sports altogether.

Excuse me?

Give it up? Come on, man. I'm 52-years old and you want me to give it up? I'll give you my answer right now. Um, NO!

Anyway...

After a few hours of recovery I started to see some strobing lights. They looked like a backwards C and were made of very, very bright colors. The doctors thought I might be having a stroke, so they took me upstairs and did a CT scan on my head.

Negative. Nothing. Nada. Doctor took a picture of my head and found nothing. I figure it was anesthesia wearing off, but boy, it was weird. I saw it again the next night, but not for nearly as long and not nearly as brilliant.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. I awoke at about 3am, sat in my bed and watched "Public Enemies" on my phone. Great movie. I'd tried to watch it on the plane last week going down to Dallas, but I couldn't hear what in the heck was being said. Next trip...noise canceling headphones.

I was discharged about 1pm Saturday afternoon. Kelly and Jacob had come back to the hospital to pick me up and after walking around a little bit with my boy, the doctor finally came in and sent me home. Going home never felt so good.

So, I bet you're wondering, "Did it work? Did it take care of your a-fib?". Yea, that's a good question, and one to which I won't have a clear answer for another three months. It seems that a-fib ablations are only about 70% effective, and for about three months post-op you can still have a bunch of it, even more than you had before.

But so far, so good. I still feel some arrhythmia, but it's nothing I can't live with for a few months. Dad always told me that you can live with anything as long as you know it's going to go away. Well, I don't KNOW it's going to go away, but I've got a 70% chance.

Paul's went away.

So did Lisa's.

I'm hoping mine goes away, too.


Coming soon - Answers to Blessings