Oldies

These are all old pictures from May, but better late than never to document them right?

St. George has been fun for Joe, While visiting him one weekend we even were able to go to Snow Canyon and do some exploring.
Joe explored caves, I opted for fresh air.
It is no secret that we love Las Vegas, so when we celebrated our 3 year anniversary May 22 we went to Las Vegas for the night and we were able to see The Lion King! I loved it and I am so sad that no one has ever expressed how awesome it actually is. The actors were amazing, I wanted to take little Simba home. The costumes were surprising I was not expecting them to be that fabulous. And it helped that our seats were awesome, we literally couldn't be closer to the stage.

Recovery

So far this recovery from the ablation has gone really well. We did have to stay in the hospital an extra night because my heart rate was high and would not come down after my first time up. But Sunday morning we were able to leave and I went right home and went to bed, my doctor decided to start me on an anti-arrhythmic medication after all to help my heart calm down. It kicked in fast and before I knew it my heart rate went from 130 beats per minute (bpm) to 60. I was looking forward to recovering in St. George so that I could be with Joe when he got home from work, but when Dr. Wang found out about that he told me I needed to stay close and now I am staying at hotel Richards where my mom is taking excellent are of me.

I feel like I have been so blessed! I actually had to call my doctor because my heart rate was in the high 40's to 50's at times. And I am now off my anti-arrhythmic medication and he decreased the dose of one of my other medications already! He said that I would need to be on one of them to help my heart calm down from all of the irritation that it went through. These are all very good signs that my heart is doing well, and that just maybe this power house team of doctors were able to get the areas of my heart causing the problems and fix me.

Many of you have expressed that you have been praying for me and I really appreciate your prayers more than you know. When I thanked one of my doctors for fixing my heart he even said that it wasn't him, but that it was someone upstairs who helped. I am very grateful for my religion and the strength that it has given me and Joe during this trial in our life.

I will try to keep you updated on my continued recovery, but basically my day goes a little something like this.
9:00-wake up and watch the price is right
10:00-12:00 Nap
12:00 Eat
2:00-4:00 Nap
6:00 Eat
7:00 Watch TV with my Dad
9:30 Out sleeping for the night :)

It is a nice relaxing life at this time, I can't complain. It is just crazy how much sleep I need. Thanks again for all your prayers!!! I appreciate all of you!

Recovery

Well we are here in recovery after (crossing our fingers) the first successful ablation. Sarah checked into the hospital yesterday at 10:45. They took her almost immediately to the cath lab. She was smiling and kept saying, "I am so excited." The nurses and others looked at her funny because they had never had a patient be excited about an ablation. The doctors started the procedure sometime between 11:00 and 11:30. We heard word at a little after 7:00 pm that they were done. The doctors were very persistent. One of the doctors said this morning that they wanted to keep going until they got her arrhythmeas because he knew that he wouldn't be able to come to work and see Sarah everyday with an arrhymea still persistent.

Sarah was taken up to her room on the Cardiac floor at about 8:00 pm last night. We got to get in and see her around 8:30. The nurses that she works with all wanted to come see her and check up on her. It has been really nice to have so many caring friends looking after her.

Sarah was pretty sleepy and doped out until about midnight. They gave her a lot of medicine to make her sleep because her procedure lasted 8 hours. It took her a long time before she was really awake. She kept saying, "I am trying so hard to open my eyes," and "I just can't open my eyes right now." Everyone said, that it was ok and she just had to rest.

Sarah had to lay flat on her back and could not bend her legs until 7 am this morning. It was a miserable night for her as she was very discomfortable from being on her back for such a long time. The reason that she could not bend her legs is because they did not want the sites on her leg where they went into her veins to start bleeding again. At 7:30 this morning she was able to get up and get out of bed. Her heart was a little irritated during this time when she was up and walking around but this is kind of to be expected because of all the work that was done yesterday.

Going forward things look very optimistic for the following reasons. In every other ablation that Sarah has had the doctors have gotten close to getting all the areas of her heart that have been causing arrhythmias gone but not completely. Because they could not get all of the areas completely irradicated the doctor would then cardiovert her and put her on anti-arrhythmia medicine. This time, the doctors completely eliminated the arrhythmias through ablation. Once the arrhythmias were gone then they tried to reinduce the arrhythmias through addrenilen and other other drugs. When they tried with Sarah her heart did not go back out of rhythm, and her heart rate only reached about 120-140, which is very normal. This is the first time, coming out of an ablation that she has not been cardioverted. The second thing is that she usually comes out of the ablation on anti-arrhythmia drugs. This time, she is not on any anti-arrhythmia drugs and her heart has been in normal sinus rhythm, except for the brief time that she was up and walking around this morning.

We should be out of the hospital later this afternoon or early this evening. Sarah has two weeks off of work and will be taking it easy. We appreciate all the kind words and prayers in our behalf. We hope that we are finally done with this journey.

Friday is the day to fix my heart!

Tomorrow is the day that we have patiently been waiting for! I get to finally have my 4th cardiac ablation, and I am hoping that the 4th time is the charm. I have some jitters, but I am really excited. The past few days I have had to be completely off my medication and it has not been a pleasant experience but today I was able to rest and I feel ready for tomorrow! I am also really happy that I get to have my procedure at the hospital where I work and I feel like I will be in great hands with all the wonderful nurses and my two experienced doctors.

So please keep me in your prayers that everything will be okay and that my doctors will be able to fix me, and pray for my amazing husband Joe that he will be comforted during the procedure.

Little Reunions

Last week one of my really good friends from high school got married. Congratulations James! And we were able to go and see friends and have a mini 9 year high school reunion for me! I really think that my good friends in high school were the best and helped me make good decisions and didn't pressure me to do anything crazy. Most of them are married or are planning weddings of their own. It was fun to get to know their new spouses better. It makes me really excited for my 10 year reunion next summer!
It was also such a fun surprise to see one of my old roommates! My old roommate Emilie served a mission with the bride. It was fun to catch up with her and meet her new little cute baby. It is just crazy how time flies.

We have a date!!

I had my appointment with my doctor today and it looked like my tests were all helpful and he said I have an incredibly healthy heart (all the valves, and structure look great), but that my heart truly does not know how to beat. I also got an answer to why I always get the hiccups, turns out my heart is responsible for that too!

The big day is Friday July 8th!!! I am so excited for this. Thanks for all of your prayers!!

No longer homeless and other things

I can breathe a big sigh of relief...We found a place to live! It is about 5 minutes away from where we are now. We looked into buying a condo, and we almost put an offer in, but it turns out it sold the day before we were going to put an offer in. We will be basement dwellers once again. This house has a beautiful backyard and the house has some character to it. We move in next Saturday!

Heart update: So this past week I had a lot of tests for my heart. The first was a tilt table test. aka: torture or worst test ever. Keep in mind I had to go off my medication for 3 days before the test, and I get symptomatic if I am 2 hours late for my medication. This is how the test works. The patient lays flat and they are strapped to a table that tilts to 70 degrees so that the patient is almost standing. Every minute blood pressure, heart rate and rhythm are being monitored. The patient has 40 minutes to pass out in the standing position. If they don't pass out in the allotted 40 minutes then they are then brought back to the lying position and medication that is designed to stress the heart out is injected, and the nurse is waiting the whole time for the patient to pass out. If the patient is still unable to pass out the table it tilted to 70 degrees which stresses the heart. The goal of the test is to have the patient pass out...fun right? I did not pass out, but I was eventually given the medication and my heart reacted. My heart rate shot up to 270 which I do believe is an all time high for me. It was miserable, but my doctor was in the room and I had a handful of nurses. Before I knew it my doctor was getting my consent to cardiovert (shock) my heart, which I eagerly agreed to. But I guess it was worth it because my doctor said he learned a lot about my heart. I get to meet with my doctor on Monday and that is the day we get to set a date for my ablation.

Did I mention that Joe is up here for the weekend? I am so happy!