the test and the procedure

Wednesday night and I'm still in the hospital as I write, post test, post procedure. (that's when I wrote this, I'm home now, got home about 5 PM Friday afternoon)

I was told to be at the hospital at 7:30 AM for the TEE, transesophageal echocardiogram, no food or water past midnight, where they were going to have me swallow a thin tube with an ultrasound camera on the end to look at my heart from the inside, looking for blood clots before they did the ablation. My throat is still sore.

So we headed out at 6:30 and ran into blinding rain almost immediately all the way through the gauntlet of the Fort Bend County road work, narrow lanes through canyons with no shoulders that changes configuration often and when we finally got out of the blinding rain we hit all the slow traffic heading into the city. But we did get there mostly on time and they checked me in and sent me upstairs to wait my turn, about half an hour or so before they called me back to prep me which involved stripping from the waist up and putting on a hospital gown, an IV, taking blood for tests, an automatic blood pressure cuff, oxygen in my nose, and about a dozen leads all over my body for an ongoing EKG. The anesthesiologist, the doctor performing the test, and the tech, all good looking younger men, all came in at various times to introduce themselves, explained what they were going to do, and ask if I had any questions. The anesthesiologist sprayed a numbing agent into mouth and told me to swallow oh nasty stuff that made my mouth water like a fiend and a really weird sensation and handed me the dental spit sucking tube til it calmed down and when they were ready to start they had a red mouthpiece for me to bite on and strap around my head which would keep my mouth open during the test.

I started laughing.

I already felt like Frankenstein's monster all wired up but when the tech pulled out the mouthpiece that scene from Pulp Fiction flashed in my head of Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames all trussed up for rape which is of course not very funny at all but there ya go. The anesthesiologist wanted to know what was so funny. I couldn't see telling him why I was really laughing so I told him I just imagined what I must look like. Anyway they got started, the anesthesiologist started the drug saying breathe through your nose, breathe through your nose, breathe through your nose...and that's the last thing I remember til I woke up. I wasn't awake two minutes before a nurse came in. The whole thing had taken about 7 minutes. No blood clots, I was good to go. Oh and no food or drink for another two hours and nothing hot. Which wasn't really a problem because my throat really hurt. I managed to get down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a scrambled egg, and oatmeal, not all at the same time, and went to bed early because I was to be back the next day at 6 AM for the ablation.

We planned to leave at 5 AM so I got up at 4:30 thinking that was plenty of time to do my yoga routine, take a shower and scrub with antibacterial soap as instructed, and get dressed. It actually took me 40 minutes so we got off 10 minutes late in the dark through more rain but not blinding. After about 10 minutes I asked Marc if he wanted me to drive. No, I'm fine he says. About 5 minutes later I asked him again. Why, he says, am I driving erratically. No, sez me, but you're going 60 in a 75. Relax he tells me, they can't start till you get there. So I meditated the rest of the way and we did get there mostly on time. The same lady checked me in, how are you today she asked? I had been deprived of coffee for two days, I had a small headache and my throat hurt. Not as chipper as yesterday, I told her.

Once again I was sent upstairs to be prepped for the ablation where they were going to send a zapper through a vein in my groin into the right atrial chamber of my heart, induce the atrial flutter, and then zap the spot/s dead that were sending out the rogue signal which would put an end to the flutter. In theory and practice. Usually.

Whereas before I just had to get naked from the waist up and a hospital gown on, this time I had to get naked under the hospital gown but they did give me some socks. So new IV, this time in my wrist instead of higher up and the minute she stuck me blood just gushed out all over my hand and the towel underneath but she got me cleaned up and the rig all taped down, more EKG tabs, an automatic blood pressure cuff, shaved my pube halfway and then washed. Once I was prepped they let Marc and my sister Pam back to sit with me while we waited for the doctor to arrive and when he did I was trundled into the room where the procedure would take place by Terry, the male nurse who would help with the rest of the prep and whose job it would be to stay by my head and respond to anything I needed or felt during the procedure because I was going to be awake!

He wheeled me into the room which was so full of machines and equipment that there was barely enough room to maneuver the bed in to switch me over to the platform for the ablation. 

He was very chatty, really they all were, telling me about the equipment, what it did, what the doctor and assistants were going to do while they covered my entire torso with these huge 5" diameter ice cold sensors front and back, more oxygen in my nose. They had 12 monitors in here he said so that they could see every detail of my heart.

Then they tied my arms down.

I'm laying there breathing through my broken nose which constricts my nasal passages some thinking I forgot to clean my nose when I showered this morning and maybe I should have remembered to do that. They covered me up to my chin with a protective layer with a hole at my groin. When the doctor came in Terry started the sedative and said the doctor would stick me with an anesthetic, it would feel like a bee sting but would stop hurting immediately. In reality I barely felt the prick. And that was the last thing I remember until I rose to consciousness to complain that my shoulder was aching and again to say that the ache had spread to my collarbone. And again to tell him I felt nauseous so he had me turn my head to the side and held that dental spit sucking device to my mouth but the urge passed until it came again and again until I did throw up some gastric juice which he sucked away immediately. The nausea was an effect of the afib, he said. I had gone into afib during the procedure. Somewhere in there I remember hearing them talk about seeing the flutter circuit and again when they had established a nice sinus rhythm and that's it til I woke up back in the prep area, headache, nausea, and sore throat intact. Instead of the 4 hours I had read it would take it took less than two. Once I woke up they let Marc and my sister and my daughter Sarah who got there after they had wheeled me away for the procedure back into the prep/recovery room to wait with me until they were ready to take me upstairs to my room.

next: recovery and observation