Finally Some Good News......

Heard from Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia the other day. I had just emailed them to make sure that being put on the cancellation list was not going to prevent me from having a hard date set. I no sooner hit the send button that I gat an Emil to confirm my appointment.

So the date is set for July 20 which is about the time back in 2009 that I had reached a point with my affib that I couldn’t ride bikes anymore. I was. Pretty much in affib all the time with hints of flutter. I had my first ablation in August of that year. I’m really excited and looking forward to the date.

Teetering......

So my sciatica is still being a pain in the ass so I broke down and purchased a Teeter Hang-up. I was going to go get a used one today but they are hard to come by. I did find one though but it was only $100 less than new and didn’t have all the bells and whistles. I’ll keep you up to date on how it works. 

Ugh.....

Spoke to my EP yesterday. I had sent him an email concerning my current state and asked him about another drug to use along with the Ticosyn. He felt it not to be a good idea for my type of arrhythmia. So I am staying the course for now. I will be seeing him next week to discuss the next move which is to see Dr. Natale in Texas for a 3rd ablation.

He did mention what he thought should be the next step which would be a Thoroscopic Maze Procedure. Which is similar to the Mini Maze or 5 Box Procedure. These are minimally invasive procedures but more invasive than Catheter Ablation and work from the outside of the heart in correlation with interior.  We shall see. On interesting note about these procedures is that they remove the Left Atrial Appendage which is thought to not only contribute to Affib but can also eliminate or reduce the formation of blood clots. Tere is also a current study being done using the LARIATE Suture System that isolates the LAA which has the same effect. This particular study is being carried out at Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia but I don't know if I am a candidate or not.

Cycling Fail........

So I did get out for a short ride the other day. Did not go so well though. High winds and torrential thunderstorm created need to cut the ride short. Te 200 plus heartrate at the end was not helpfull either.

Maintenance Outage Infinity.....

So our so called 2 week mini outage has turned into well over a month with way to many startups and shutdowns. Tonight involving yet another since the end of Infinity outage. Then we get the pleasure of putting it back on and taking the other unit of on Sunday. Assuming everything goes well which it probably won't.  This also means we will be bringing the unit back off before the heat to repair another gremlin that won't allow us to make full load when it gets really hot outside. It's a comedy of errors perpetrated by people I am pretty sure should not be in charge of the asylum.

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.

Dagnabbit......

Well all was goo until Sunday evening when I went back into affib.
This weekend was our short turn and I did not get much sleep at all so I'll blame it on that. So that was a 5 day run in NSR so I'm still hopeful.

I converted back to NSR Monday afternoon and remained there until Wednesday evening. I converted sometime during the night. I remained in NSR until yesterday evening. The affib episode only lasted a couple hours though. But then this morning back out of rhythm again.

My sleep patterns the past couple days haven't been too good either. Was in bed both nights before 2200 but awake before 0200 both nights. That's got to stop.

Normalcy....

There has been some normalcy in my life though. Gabe and I hit the Hoodlebug trail on our new FUJI Jari bikes. Still need to make a couple adjustments but these are going to be great bikes for us. I was worried about mine as I had calculated some numbers wrong and thought that maybe I had bought a bike one size to large for myself but all is good. I doubt we will get to do our trip this summer due to my heart issues but should still be able to get some riding in for sure.

Worked outside all day yesterday. Got my garden started. Lettuce and onion sets are in and I'll get the rest of the plants in next week.