Fortunately for me, week 3 was much better than week 2. The day after I was released from the hospital I had an appointment with my local medical team to go over the options of how they want to help me. The cardiologist came in first and he was really positive. He told me this repair was like “bread and butter”. He said there was no reason to go to a big city, or a teaching hospital where an apprentice would be doing the repair. He felt there was a 90% chance my valve could be repaired. He was then followed by the surgeon. I felt really comfortable with the surgeon. He has over 20 years experience and has repaired 100’s of valves. He said he was repairing 3 next week. He hesitated to call it a “bread and butter” procedure, but he did feel 90 to 95% chance of successful repair. He also recommended against a mechanical valve, if a replacement was necessary. He said bioengineered valves have gotten better and would last 15 to 20 years. He also said at that point if it started to fail, they could use a clip at that point to give me more quality years. Overall, I felt much better about having the procedure done locally and as I left the meeting, they said they would call within 48 hours to set up the surgery.

The next day, I had an appointment for an echocardiogram with Northwestern Medicine. I had called Northwestern for a second opinion. They were the top cardiac hospital in my area and the top surgeon, Dr. McCarthy, has performed thousands of successful repairs. When I first contacted them they told me the first available meeting with Dr. McCarthy wasn’t until June 10th. This was 2 weeks after my echocardiogram, so I was not hopeful that I would be able to get a surgery scheduled in a timely manner. Especially with my local team calling in 48 hours. Northwestern had access to all my local tests, but they said they needed a more detailed image that measured “strain” of maybe “force” and that my local procedure did not do that.

The following day, while waiting for my local team to call, Northwestern called and they said, “We can get you in with Dr. McCarthy in just over a week.” At first I couldn’t believe it. This was the best place to go, right up there with Cleveland Clinic, etc. Then I got a little worried. A lot of people wait over a month for these surgeries, how bad was my condition?? They simply said that while my heart is fully functioning, they were concerned with my enlarged left ventricle and it was simply time to get it fixed. I agreed, accepted the appointment, and thanked my good fortune.

I will say that I felt much better this week. I was getting more sleep and my anxiety had gone way down. There were still moments. Thinking about having to make it over a week without another episode of Afib was scary, as are the potential side effects of this new medication amiodarone. However the medication has really given my heart a rest with a resting BP in the low 60’s. (less than half of the 140 I was suffering during afib.). And I can’t feel the palpatations/regurgitation that I felt prior to taking the medicine. It is my hope that my last 48 hours in afib contributed to the dialated ventricle noticed in the 2nd echocardiogram and that this week of a restful rhythm has helped my heart to relax a bit before the surgery. I have 1 week to go before surgery, so I will detail that in week 4.

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As I mentioned in my last post, week one post cardioversion was pretty good. I felt really good. Unfortunately that all changed week two. On the Monday of the second week, I had a follow-up T.E.E. to determine the cause of my Afib. It quickly showed severe regurgitation of my mital valve. This was not good news. As the nurse practitioner mentioned after my cardioversion, I was too young for any easy fix. My valve would need to be repaired through open heart surgery, or worse yet, replaced. After the doctor revealed the results of TEE, I asked him if I was ok to walk around like this. He quickly responded, “Yeah, you’re fine.” and left the room.

I did not feel fine. The uncertainty caused a lot of stress and I had a bad week. Anxiety stole my sleep and not getting enough sleep, (about 3 hours a night) added to my anxiety. It was a cruel cycle. The Friday of that week, they had scheduled an angiogram to make sure there were not any other issues with my heart. The angiogram came back clear. This was good news, so you think it would have lessened my anxiety, but it did not. Two days later on the Sunday morning after my angiogram, a medical report showed up in my email. As I read the report, despite the good results, I experienced what I can only describe as a small panic attack. I felt this charge of energy in the pit of my stomach rise straight up to my heart and just like that I was back in afib at 180 beats per minute. A short ambulance ride later and I was back the hospital on a 48 hour drip. This time however it was much worse. Instead of using Cardizem to slow my heart rate, they used Amiodarone to try to correct the rhythym. It did not work. It also did not slow my heart rate so I spent thus stay with my heart bouncing in my chest at 130-140 bpm. This is one of the worst things I have experienced. I don’t know what it feels like to be waterboarded, but I imagine this might cmoe close. Try to sleep when you are being poked in the chest every second is next to impossible. At some point my body just gave out and I was able to sleep for a few hours. (maybe 3).

So again after a total of 48 hours, I was given my second successful cardioversion on a Tuesday. I had two more appointments to follow in the next two days, and I will go over those in Week 3. Again, feel free to ask any questions.

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I’ve been visiting Substack on and off over the past six months, but a recent health scare has motivated me to start my own to journal my experience in order to help manage my thoughts and maybe help others who may be experiencing the same thing. Up until a few weeks ago, I thought I was a healthy 55 year-old, who exercised enough to keep in decent shape. I was not on any medications and the only time I would take Tylenol or Advil is if I had a fever. The only recent health scare I had was an abscessed tooth that required a root canal. During that experience, I took a visit to urgent care and they questioned me about my blood pressure, which was in the upper 140’s. After the root canal, I visited my primary care doctor to ask him about my blood pressure and to tell him that I had occasionaly felt some significant palpatations in my heart, but they never really stayed consistent. Of course my blood pressure was almost perfect for this visit. He listened to my heart and heard nothing concerning. ( I feel that I probably had a murmur at this time. I am not accusing him of missing it, but for whatever reason it was not detected.) I told him that my blood pressure was often in the 130s when I tested it at home and he offered a low dose medication, but said he usually does not prescribe medication under 140 and since I did not want to take any medication, I said I would try to be a little more active and lower my blood pressure naturally. He did recommend a CT scan, so I took one and had a score of 0.4. After that I thought everything was good and I was in great shape.

Fast forward 6 months later, my wife and I go out to eat on a Friday night and I have 2 glasses of bourbon with my dinner. I am not sure if I felt palpatations before the bourbon that evening, but I do remember feeling them after dinner and I quickly ignored them. The next morning I still felt a little off. I had a long day of yard work planned, but my wife and I started the day with a 3 mile walk. No fatigue or shortness of breath during the walk, but I did notice that my heart was not slowing down after we returned. I knew I needed to get it looked at before I started my yard work so I stopped at urgent care. They measured my pulse at 97, but then gave me a quick EKG, and said my heart rate was over 150. They sent me to the ER and the next thing I know I am rewarded with a 2 day stay in the hospital on an IV drip. My heart was in Afib and they were trying to correct it. It never corrected. In fact, it become more erratic on the second day. They performed a successful cardioversion on Monday. Before the cardioversion, they performed a T E E, to make sure there was no danger of stroke. During the T E E, the doctor mentioned some regurgitation, but thought it could have been caused by the Afib. So while waiting to be discharged to go home, a cardiac nurse stopped by to discuss the regurgitation that was discovered. She had a very serious tone and mentioned that it needed to be fixed. She said I was too young for any non-invasive procedure, so they needed to do another T E E to confirm the leakage and plan for either a repair or a replacement. This was scary, but I felt great after the cardioversion, so I was hopeful that the condition was caused by the Afib, and I would probably only need an ablasion to get things back to normal. I was prescribed low dose Metoprolol and Eliquis and sent on my way. Other than taking a day or two to get used to the Eliquis, I had a pretty good week and my heart felt great. I would have my second T E E one week later and after this test, things have become a little more difficult, but most of it is from my anxiety. I will explain week 2, in my next post. Feel free to comment or ask any questions you may have. It helps me to share.

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