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.

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.