jgibson
Well-known member
I must really be a glutton for punishment.
Needed to go and pick up a refill for my pain medication from the Cardiac area over at Vanderbilt. Long story short, the night before I was going to go in, I noticed that I had some rapid heartbeats, things kind of beating funny, etc. Things felt kind of strange, but no pain. I'm thinking,
"I'll bring it up to them when I'm there. At most, they may change a medication, or something along those lines".
Oh No. It can't be that easy.
They strap me to the EKG machine the next day and start checking. Nothing. Everything is showing up just fine. "Just my luck" I say. You can never see something like you want to. Anyway, she unhooks me, and is about to let me go home when my heart starts beating funny again. I told her it was doing it again, so she grabbed my wrist, and sure enough, she felt it. So anyway, since my heart was still acting up, they immediately run the EKG machine back in. Now the fun part. The tech can't get it hooked up right. All the leads aren't working. In the time that it took him to hook it up, my heart had three episodes where it was acting funny. Anyway, they finally get it hooked up right, and what do you know. It's acting normal again.
By this point, I'm wondering what the heck is going on here.
Anyway, the lady I'm working with leaves the room for a few minutes and then comes back in and lowers the boom on me. "We need to observe you for 48 hours". "WHAT!!!"
She said, she thinks she see's a little atril-fib on my EKG. Granted, I understand. You don't want to mess around with atril-fib, but two more days????
Needless to say, I'm just a LITTLE disappointed. There will definitely be no trick or treating with my 5 and 7 year old boys this year.
So back to a room I go at Vandy. They hook me up to the continuous heart monitor, etc. Long story short, it looks like what I was having was PVC's. Not sure if I even had atril-fib, but they did catch PVC's. So they have now switched me from the metoprolol I was on, to sotalol. Apparently it did the trick, Once I switched medications, my heart stopped going off on the strange heartbeats.
The good news is this. The first night I was in the hospital, I started developing problems with pericarditis again. Started out as a pain above my left shoulder blade. From there it moved to the upper left portion of my chest, and from there, the pain just kept on getting worse. The problem was, that they kept treating me like they were not sure what do to. I kept telling them that I had been in the ER last week with these pains, and that they were the same. But it wasn't until my surgeons sidekick came in and told them to order me some more indomethacin. 2 hours after that medicine and I was pain free. AGAIN!!!
So, it is now Thursday, Nov 1st, and I am back home. Heart seems to be back in a normal rhythm now, so I'm happy about that.
I am determined not to go back to the hospital until my post-op visit with my surgeon. At least I hope that's the case. You know what they say. Third times the charm.
Needed to go and pick up a refill for my pain medication from the Cardiac area over at Vanderbilt. Long story short, the night before I was going to go in, I noticed that I had some rapid heartbeats, things kind of beating funny, etc. Things felt kind of strange, but no pain. I'm thinking,
"I'll bring it up to them when I'm there. At most, they may change a medication, or something along those lines".
Oh No. It can't be that easy.
They strap me to the EKG machine the next day and start checking. Nothing. Everything is showing up just fine. "Just my luck" I say. You can never see something like you want to. Anyway, she unhooks me, and is about to let me go home when my heart starts beating funny again. I told her it was doing it again, so she grabbed my wrist, and sure enough, she felt it. So anyway, since my heart was still acting up, they immediately run the EKG machine back in. Now the fun part. The tech can't get it hooked up right. All the leads aren't working. In the time that it took him to hook it up, my heart had three episodes where it was acting funny. Anyway, they finally get it hooked up right, and what do you know. It's acting normal again.
By this point, I'm wondering what the heck is going on here.
Anyway, the lady I'm working with leaves the room for a few minutes and then comes back in and lowers the boom on me. "We need to observe you for 48 hours".
"WHAT!!!" She said, she thinks she see's a little atril-fib on my EKG. Granted, I understand. You don't want to mess around with atril-fib, but two more days????
Needless to say, I'm just a LITTLE disappointed. There will definitely be no trick or treating with my 5 and 7 year old boys this year.
So back to a room I go at Vandy. They hook me up to the continuous heart monitor, etc. Long story short, it looks like what I was having was PVC's. Not sure if I even had atril-fib, but they did catch PVC's. So they have now switched me from the metoprolol I was on, to sotalol. Apparently it did the trick, Once I switched medications, my heart stopped going off on the strange heartbeats.
The good news is this. The first night I was in the hospital, I started developing problems with pericarditis again. Started out as a pain above my left shoulder blade. From there it moved to the upper left portion of my chest, and from there, the pain just kept on getting worse. The problem was, that they kept treating me like they were not sure what do to. I kept telling them that I had been in the ER last week with these pains, and that they were the same. But it wasn't until my surgeons sidekick came in and told them to order me some more indomethacin. 2 hours after that medicine and I was pain free. AGAIN!!!
So, it is now Thursday, Nov 1st, and I am back home. Heart seems to be back in a normal rhythm now, so I'm happy about that.
I am determined not to go back to the hospital until my post-op visit with my surgeon. At least I hope that's the case.
You know what they say. Third times the charm.
