Heart Update

It has been 1 1/2 weeks since my last cardiac ablation. I am feeling much better than I have recovering from the past previous ablations. Here is how my doctor said the procedure went.

Dr Bunch said that they found 2 areas of my heart with irregular electrical activity (this had gone down from the 20 areas from the 1st ablation). They were able to ablate the first area very easily, but the second area gave them more problems. It actually went up the aorta which is not common and that is a hard area to ablate, but it was also very close to the SA Node (which is the pacemaker of the heart, if you ablate that you need an emergency pacemaker). My doctor said that my heart was very resilient, and had healed completely from my previous procedures and he did not see any scar tissue. The procedure lasted about 7 hours and I was able to go back to recovery. When I was being wheeled back to my recovery room I apparently started shaking uncontrollably and was very cold to the touch, with all the fluids and the cold cath lab room I got hypothermia, so the nurses tried to get me to warm up with blankets and other things such as my nurse hugging me in my bed, when that wouldn't work they allowed Joe in the room to hug me and that helped to warm me up. I was out of it and do not remember any of this.

My doctor said that we will have a better idea of how my heart handled this procedure in about 3 months because by then my heart should have calmed down and healed. Hopefully he will start to wean me off some of my medication and that will be when the real test occurs. Hopefully my heart will stay in rhythm and my heart rate will be normal and eventually I can get off all of my medications.

Thanks for all of your prayers! Joe and I have been comforted and we are grateful to all of you!