Heart News

Seems as how I started this latest round of blogging to share more of my experiences with the  condition known as AFIB, I suppose a very recent example (today) night be appropriate.
Since 2013 I have been diagnosed with the double-hammy of atrial fibrillation and bradycardia. The former designates a heart arrhythmia in the atria and the latter a heart-rate that is too low (<60bpm typically). Together they can cause serious trouble yet they are not considered life threatening. That just make you feel like they are. The real risk is that they put one in the dreaded 'red-zone' for stroke, upping percentages of incident into the catastrophic realms.

The diagnostic phase, mine taking almost a year and financial ruin, saw me fail the two most common treatments, cardioaversion (the paddles) and ablation (the surgical removal of nodes causing electrical malfunction). Once it became apparent that neither of those procedures were going to work, my wonderful electro-physiologist at the University of Washington Medical Center (UW Med) gave me two choices. A pace maker or a pace maker.
Being a good patient I chose the pace maker. The day was set and I bribed Dad to sit in the waiting room until the device was installed to drive me home.

That was three years ago. They gave me no restrictions, said I could do whatever I wanted (swim-bike-run) and at whatever intensity level and duration I desired (Ironman). So off we went.

This magical device inside my chest is capable of storing every heart beat for months at a time. We download every six months and review the data. Yes, I go into Afib occasionally but I am getting so good at its detection that I hardly need a device to shock me back into sinus rhythm. I just lay down and meditate into a blissful state, where if that doesn't work a good nights seep usually will. Sometimes it's scary as my heart feels like it might implode and the flow of oxygenated blood is reduced in brain, but I no longer go rushing to the ER gasping about chest pain and pending comatose.  

There is sometimes a connection with alcohol. Or the over consumption of it more accurately. But this morning as we were half way through a rather intense hour spin session (my second of the day) I watched my heart rate monitor start to ping-pong between 140 and 217 bpm, data I hardly needed as validation that something was on the fritz.

And I knew what it was. BUT, as I have a colonoscopy scheduled for Thursday, where the procedure calls for cessation of the anti coagulant medication I take daily to keep out of the aforementioned stroke red-zone, I am feeling weird.

So I watch the display telling me that we have arrhythmia, and that I am venerable because of the med situation, and I am the class leader, and blah, and blah.

I get home, have a delicious bowl of tomato-bisque soup and take a nap.

Just another day.