5 Weeks In

Its been 5 weeks since my ablation with Dr.Natale in Austin. And my heart has been quite since my Cardioversion 2 weeks ago. No PAC's, PVC's, Eptopics or any other type of arrhythmia. To say I am happy about that is an understatement and I hope that it continues. There are still a couple months to go in the blanking period.

Of course I am still dealing with the Sciatic Nerve pain from my L4-L5 disc bulge. I've been to the ER twice over the past couple weeks with it as doctors have seemed to just leave me hanging with no way to alleviate pain. However, I have had the bulged disc confirmed by an MRI ordered by the ER doc. I also spoke with a Surgeon about it who wants to wait to see if the disc heals itself. So in the mean time he has ordered a nerve block for me. But as per usual that was Wednesday and today is Saturday and as of right now I wont be getting a nerve block until September 5th.

So here I sit in pain with no immediate relief in sight. I really thought that when I left his office on Wednesday he had a full understanding of my situation. Lots of pain and recent heart surgery that I am still recovering from that requires me to have little stress. So much for that I guess. Between me and the surgeons office we have contacted every pain clinic there is and nobody can beat the September 5th date as of yet.

I did have a glitter of hope Friday though. My wife actually knows someone that works in a pain clinic not to awful far away. Its actually one that I had already contacted that said they really could not help me. But is seams that maybe they can. The do what they call direct inject. this means that my doctor refers me and I go get the shot that day or within a day or two. So I called the surgeons office again and implored them to contact this particular clinic and get the ball rolling. Which they did. I also asked if they could give me something for the pain to bridge me to the time of the injection which they also offered to do. She said that they would get me some percoset. So i was a little be more optimistic at this point.

After talking with them I headed to the Chiropractor for some traction therapy. I do have the conversion table but it didn't seem to be helping and the traction uses intermittent pressure an actually seems to help. After my time on the Rack I started heading for the surgeons office to retrieve what I thought was going to be a pain med that might help me. Unfortunately it isn't. Just more of what they gave me at the ER that doesn't even take the edge off.

The Bright side, or at least I thought, was I got a call from the pain clinic. They had received the referral from my surgeon and only needed some paperwork from my Dr. in Texas which I had already started the ball rolling on a couple days before. She got all my information and what she needed from Texas and promised she would touch base with me before the end of the day.Which she didn't.

PAC's, PVC's & a Cardioversion

Last week was a cluster healthwise. Of course my sciatic nerve pain is through the roof right now and I was running allot of PAC's and PVC's. I went out of rhythm Tuesday morning for a bit but converted back. Then I went to the hospital Tuesday evening to see if they could do some tests to figure out if my sciatica was being caused by a disc or some other ailment. They did some exray's and a CTA scan to rule out any clots in my leg. Everything came back normal so I still don't know 100% what's going on. Pretty sure its a bulged disc though so I'll have to wait it out.

I had sent Dr Natales office some recordings on Wednesday morning as I had gone back out of rhythm and they called and asked if I could arrange to get cardioverted within next week. I called my local EP and they scheduled me for last Friday morning. I worked Thursday night so  headed for the hospital straight from work Friday morning.

Cardioversion

If you have been keeping up you already know that my I have
already had one cardioversion done this year back in April. You will also know that the worst part of any EP experience for me has been the TEE. I was however curious as to how this one would go. My Cardiologist retired last month so I knew that he would not be doing the procedure. Which,, even though I hold the man in high regard his TEE skills pretty much suck.

So I arrived at the hospital early and got all the pre cardioversion stuff done which basically consist of a chest x-ray and getting an IV so they can inject the propofol for sedation. They hooked me up to a monitor then decided to wait on my EP to some in and verify that I really needed a cardioversion. He came in not too long after to talk to me about what was currently going on and to also catch up on the festivities in Texas. I handed him a copy of the ablation report and he quickly took it out and looked it over. He was very pleased to find all his work was solid, as I was always confident that it was. We then talked about the cardioversion and some small talk. He said that I was in a controlled flutter and that they would be doing a TEE then cardioverting me.



It was a while before they came to get me so I was just laying there trying to catch a nap but I kept hearing this music, Kool and The Gang to be specific. I originally thought that one of the other patients in the holding areas family members was playing music but I would eventually find out it wasn't them and where the music was actually coming from.

Eventually a couple of transport girls came to get me to take me to the EP lab. I stepped from my bed to the transport table then they wheeled me out into the hall. As we approached the hall the music got louder and the girls started to dance. There was a doctor sitting right outside the room and Celebrate must have been the music his computer played when he opened his computer. What a light hearted fun moment that was. Always a great experience at UPMC.

I eventually ended up at the EP lab where I met Karl. A very animated prep guy. He made me laugh several times. Then the nurse anesthetist came on and we started talking. Now if you have never had a cardioversion before there are allot of folks involved. You have of course the EP, a cardiologist, nurse anesthetist and of course and anesthesiologist. So rangeling them all together can be a task as stated by the cardiologist that soon entered the room.

She was very friendly and animated. She introduced herself and we talked for a while. I had told her about my many experiences with TEE's, good and bad and we laughed. Finally everyone showed up, I signed a couple more forms, then off to lala land/ I never even knew that she dd the TEE. The cardioversion went well. it only took one jolt to convert me back into rhythm and I have been there ever since. Hopefully that will be it for forever. So far as weather or not I am concerned about the success of my ablation, I'm not. I am just over 3 weeks in at this point so the heart is still healing. The fact that I went into flutter does not concern me either as it was probably all the PAC's and PVC's that put me there. I also realise that I may need a touchup procedure as Dr. Natale addressed some issues that hadn't been addressed before.

The Day Is Drawing Nigh

It seems just like forever since I firsT started the process to see Dr Natale and now it’s just few days away.Failed ablation in January, Medications I had been using for years stopped working. Cardioversion in April. Then starting new medications (Ticosyn) shortly after that worked spartically. Now in just a few days I will be having an ablation with Dr. Natale. 

My last dose of Ticosyn was Friday evening and I started to taper off the Metoprolol. I will continue to tale Elequis straight through. I didn't have to stop the Ticosyn until Sunday but I spoke to my nurse and asked if it would be OK to stop a day or two early as I wanted to be certain that as much of it was out of my system as possible before the ablation. She said that would be fine so I did. I'm also down to a single dose of metoprolol.

Now the weird thing is that I have had nothing but issues since starting the Ticosyn. It didn't keep in me rhythm all the time. Sometimes I would stay in NSR for several days and other times several hours. Even up until last week I was in and out of rhythm a few times. But since I stopped on Friday I have only had a few stray odd heartbeats.Now I am not complaining as I figured I would be out of rhythm and miserable until Friday.

Don't get me wrong. I am more than happy to not be miserable but it does strike me as odd. Especially with all the issues I have had up until this point. Anyway, I am leaving for the airport soon and have an appointment for a CTA and I will finally get to meet the nurses and Dr Natale tomorrow in Austin. Needless to say I am excited. 

TSA$$hole

Now it’s been a long time since I’ve flown. Actually it was before 911 and someone decided that we should give up some of our freedom for supposed safety. Do I feel safer? No. Do I feel like TSAagnts are rude and obnoxious? Of course they are. Why not? You have zero recourse for I am sure if you call them on anything your TSA experience for infinitim will be horrible.

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

So said so said my nurse in Texas and some guy named Tom. So I wait, and wait and wait. Pretty sure you got the picture.

Still dealing with the leg pain as well. But not quite as bad. Spent the 4th with the family in Pittsburgh walking around and this afternoon staining the deck so there is improvement. Not much else has been going on otherwise unless you want me to rant about the crappy weather.

Instead I’ll leave you with this. Been a fN of this guy for a while now. Lots of metal covers of nonmetal songs.

Nothing New To Report

So its the same ole same ole with the battle between my arrhythmia and the Tikosyn. Tikosyn still has the advantage but not enough to satisfy my psyche. Of course the arrhythmia has an accomplice this week in the form of sciatica.

Now if you have never had sciatic nerve issues or God forbid your
Satorius Muscle cramp up on you on you 70 miles into a century ride, consider yourself lucky.I will add here that the Satorius Muscle cramp wins hands down in medieval torture fashion. At least with the sciatic nerve you can remain still and have the pain recede. The Satorius Muscle however, will toy with you. As you try to find relief by bending your leg it will pull tighter. If you try to stretch it pulls even tighter. It will leave you writhing on the ground wishing for death if you let it. My best advice is to keep pedaling in a smaller gear at at higher cadence. It will right itself pretty quickly.

Anyway, it became quite clear a couple days ago that I was going to be on a sciatic nerve pain train that was too late to try to derail. There are many exercises you can do to keep this from happening and or help alleviate it before it reaches the point that mine did. A pain that I hope reached its crescendo yesterday.

I was sitting on the deck last night with my wife. it was getting late and she decided to go to bed. I told her I would be along soon. About 20 minutes passed and I decided to get up. No go. I shifted around and tried again. No go with some added whimpering. So I picked up my cell and called my wife....no answer. So I called my son and asked hie to send her outside. She soon arrived to find me where she left me. She tried several times to assist me from my perch to no avail. We finally decided to try the heating pad as that had given me some relief earlier in the day. 30 minutes later I got enough relief to escape the grasp the chair had on me.

The night was no better as any bit of relief I got either from ice or heat was short lived so 3 hours sleep was all I got last night. Then when it was time to get up it took about an hour for me to get out of bed. I had an appointment with my cardiologist for an echo this morning so I had no choice but to suck it up and carry on. I did get in to see my GP this afternoon and he prescribed me some muscle relaxers and steroids and said I should be right as rain, or at least more human like come Saturday. He also said he is seeing sciatica and nerve pain in other patients that are taking Tikosyn. He promised it would go away.

The Echocardiogram went really well and no issues were immediately found. My Cardiologist said if he did find anything he would call me in a day or two and if I don't here from him then all is well. He did say that the weakness they saw on the TEE before my cardioversion was no longer present so that is good. Once he has completed his report he will send it off to Texas as this was the last piece of information that Dr. Natale requested.