The Lehigh marathon didn't go too well, as I had to pull out at mile 12 due to health issues. I was really disappointed, as I had been feeling great during summer training and really thought a sub 3:30 was going to happen. Jason and I went running the following weekend and about a half mile in I felt really tired and thought we were running at 5K pace. Too bad we were running slow. Jason checked my heart rate and it was almost maxed out.
I ended up going to the cardiologist where a treadmill stress test and echocardiogram were performed. The structure and function of my heart were fine, but the stress test triggered an PSVT. Essentially, my blood was pumping through "bad" pathways that shouldn't have been there and that was causing rhythm problems. The doc told me my choices were to live with it (it's not lethal), medicine, or cardiac ablation. I was quickly scheduled for an ablation and was looking forward to getting back to running soon.
For an ablation, you go to an electrophysiology (EP) lab where they insert four wires into your heart via catheters inserted into a vein on the left/right side of the groin. Once the wires are in the heart and are attached, the docs pretty much shoot adrenaline into you to get your heart racing. If something is wrong with you, your heart will do "something"; in my case, trigger PSVT. Once triggered, they map out where the bad places are and ablate them.
I was nervous as all get out come ablation time (10/17/13). I was afraid I would feel the wires moving through my body and the thought of that made me want to throw up. I had asked to see the wires and they were bigger than I thought they would be, so that didn't help, but since I'm otherwise healthy, they were able to make me really comfortable. In other words, I was knocked out. I don't remember anything from the procedure other than waking up after and asking if it was over and if I was fixed. The doc said the procedure went well. They were able to easily trigger the SVT and were able to fix the one bad pathway they found. I was really, really happy with this news.
The next couple of days were extremely lazy days since I had to stay off my feet (to let the veins/catheter insertion sites heal) and had minimal chest pain. The weekend didn't go very well though, as I ended up in the ER. My doctor prescribed me a Holter monitor to wear for a few weeks to see what was going on. My heart rate was still getting really high with light activity, but since I wasn't about to try maxing it out, the Holter monitor didn't really pick up anything.
My doctor was really surprised that I was still having issues since he and the other doctor thought my procedure had gone so well. He said that it was possible that the tissue swelling (side effect of it being burnt) blocked part of the bad pathway which caused it not to re-trigger when they tried to during the procedure. The other option was that this was just how my heart was going to be and I'd have to deal with it - ugh. He said I could go for another treadmill stress test or I could bypass that and go straight back to the EP lab for possibly another ablation. I decided to go on back to the EP lab since that was the most efficient; they can figure out what is wrong more accurately AND fix it.
I wasn't nearly as nervous for the (possible) second ablation (11/14/13). I put possible because going into it I knew there was a chance they wouldn't trigger anything and there would be nothing to ablate. I was praying they would be able to trigger something. So the nerves were a lot lower since I knew what to expect and was confident in my doctors to find and fix the problem. Once they had me in the EP lab, I realized the anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist were missing. Turns out, they were using a different sedative. I had to fight back tears because once again I was afraid I'd feel the procedure. I didn't feel anything, but am 99.9% sure I woke up during and asked them how long I had been in there. I do plan on asking why a different sedative was used; I'm wondering if they wanted me less knocked out than last time. Everything after the procedure is pretty hazy, but the docs told my mom that they had to burn 4 more bad pathways and 1 was closer to the AV node so they couldn't burn it as long due to the risk of injury and pacemaker. They said it was very possible the pathway they fixed in round 1 was masking these other ones and were confident that I would be good to go now.
I didn't end up in the ER this past weekend, which I will take as a positive sign that things are fixed. I've had more chest pain, but figure that is due to having more places fixed. The catheter insertion sites have been more tender so I haven't attempted to even go for a walk. I'm hoping to get out this weekend and see how I feel. Everything I have read says to expect a high HR for a few months after an ablation, so I'm not sure if I'll be confident I'm fixed until I'm able to max out my HR and see what happens. That attempt will be a few weeks from now though, as I need to heal up some more and get some miles back on my legs.
I've been finding a lot of comfort in the following verse:
"Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And if worry can't accomplish a little thing like that, what's the use of worrying over bigger things?" - Luke 12:25-26
