So what exactly happened?

Sunday October 4, started like any Sunday afternoon does for me and Michael. We went to his parents to eat Sunday dinner and spend some time there. His parent's home is like my second home. I feel completely at ease and comfortable there.

While we were there that Sunday my heart started "acting up" at lunch. I stopped eating and put my head between my hands. I do a fairly good job at controlling my heart and breathing during these times. I concentrated on that while Michael and his parents looked on concern. I finally gave up on eating and sat on the couch. "It will go away" I told myself. It always does and this time is no different. I have atrial fibrillation. Take a minute.

See, it's nothing life-threatening at all. An hour later I finally called my mom to bring my carelink monitor. I sent a transmission to my doctors at MUSC here in SC and laid down. I was so exhausted because of the a-fib that I just wanted to sleep. Plus, sleeping has made it go away in the past so why should this time be any different?

I woke up three hours later and it was still not gone. Yep, emergency room time. I called to make sure I was doing the right thing and I was. I walked into the emergency room on my own accord and told the lady at the desk I would like to check in. When the words "atrial fibrillation" came out of my mouth I was whisked away to a room. In the room I was hooked up to several monitors and what not. Fast forward about an hour and a half....

They had played around with some ideas as to what to do for me and decided that Diltiazem would be the best avenue for it. Before they could start me on the medicine, my heart took off. And BAM, my defibrillator shocked my heart to try to slow it down. And AGAIN. And AGAIN. And three more times it went. It was so surreal. It was happening to me but I could see it happening to someone else, like it was happening on TV. The cardiac ER doctor was awesome at keeping me calm. She finally put Diltiazem into my IV after the second time of my defibrillator going off. She kept up with me the whole time, kept eye contact me with me. I remember looking around and seeing at least 15 people in the room during that time.She was finally able to get my heart rate to go down...after LOT of Diltiazem, Morphine, and Zofran. Yes, I was so drugged I could not see straight. However, that didn't keep me from worrying about how fast my heart was going. For an hour, even after it had slowed down, it was a matter of peace of mind for me to know it was okay. In fact, at one point it had began to creep up again and I was able to tell her before she even saw it on the monitor. Some more Diltiazem later, I was stable. After that, I definitely had a hard time trusting that they were watching my heart rate. That's when I was introduced to Ativan. And I lived on that for the next 24 hours. Good stuff.

My heart may have slowed down but it never corrected itself out of the abnormal rhythm. Monday morning my electrophysiologist decided that cardioversion was needed to correct the a-fib. So, after drugging me up on some Versed they shocked my heart so it would go back into rhythm. When I woke up, I didn't even realize it was over. They only thing I knew was my heart was back to normal. And I was grateful.

I'm not going to lie. I'm terrified now. I have always depended on my defibrillator to stop these types of rhythms. Although my defibrillator was implanted for the purpose of ventricular tachycardia, it had always worked in the past for the purposes of a-fib. I guess I figured (or had hoped) it would continue to be the case. It's not. My defibrillator did nothing for me that Sunday. The WONDERFUL ER cardiac doctor and her medications is what stopped the episode. And I can't get that out of my mind. I can't get the picture in my head of me coming off the gurney with every shock from my defibrillator. So much so that I was sent home with Xanax to help with the anxiety. I'm scared. I'm constantly aware of my heart rate and heartbeat. And I'm not sure how to be normal again. I'm not sure how to forget this happened and go back to normal.


***This was written shortly after my hospital stay. While I am still very aware of my heart beats, things have gotten better as you will see with future posts.