To quote an 80's Foreigner nugget "That Was Yesterday."
I am still wearing the monitor from the photo on the right--taken three ECGs ago. But that's about it. Everything else seems to have moved past.
First, the fun: I blacked out this morning! Wheee!
It was kind of a sissy blackout, all things considered. A couple seconds, tops. But I was very much not here for those seconds, and that counts if you ask me.
I stood up to go pee. Stayed standing for a second to get my equilibrium, as everyone tells me to do.
Then looked at N.
"What? Are yo OK?"
"Yeah. Just...headrush"
Then I vaguely recall thinking maybe sitting on the bed might make sense.
Then N was in front of me calling for help into the nurse's callbox. She had her arms out like a goalie. I was at that point sort of burrowing into the bed face first, worming my way back toward the pillows without using my hands.
I remember the return to awareness as very abrupt for two reasons. One: as soon as my head was level with my heart again, I was back, full clarity.
Two: I had not been on my face in a month. Because of the rattlesnake, I have to be on my back. Maybe twice I got kind of on one side, but NEVER on my face.
So I return to consciousness and all I can think, along with "I wonder what N is so concerned about?" is "Wow, I am on my face. I am rubbing my face against the bed. My chest is on the bed. My back is open to the air. This is so weird."
Needless to say I wasn't much help at this point. But N had seen me teeter and sit, and when I drew my arms into myself, fluttered by bilirubin-yellowed eyes and started my little mole-voyage towards he head of the bed, she guided me onto the mattress correctly so I squiggled around harmlessly for a few seconds before coming out of it and looking at her with what I can only assume was a perplexed expression.
The Physician's Assistant was, rightfully, a little concerned, as was the nurse. But when we called a friend of mine who is an ER doc in Baltimore, he just laughed at me.
"Yeah, that's A-fib."
OK.
The long and short of the day is that between all the local departments on the cancer floor and cardiology--wherever they hide--it seems to have been figured out.
Chemotherapy regimens, by their nature, suppress your immune system, creating the possibility of incursion or infection of lots of your places by any number of baddies. Most of the infections that concern doctors are from the inside--your gastro tract is thinned so you get sick from yourself, etc.
It seems that I now have some not-too-concerning-to-the-Drs infection or irritation or inflammation of the heart sac: Pericarditis.
The pred--the only damn good thing the pred has done for me since day frigging one--masked the discomfort around the heart. But it was there, and I went A-fib.
At about 9:30 the medical team came in on rounds and said "You flipped back to normal sinus rhythm at 8:30, did you feel it?"
I had not. Which, I'll be honest, pissed me off a little. I had been so scared and hyperaware, and then when the best possible thing happens, I miss it.
Regardless, I have been back in normal sinus all day and evening. They still have half a bag of heparin on the pole just in case but nobody seems to think I will need it. I have been put on two bags of saline to get my blood pressure a little higher: I am still on Lopressor to lower my heart rate. It was this drug that they think helped guide me back to normal sinus so I am still on the pill for a while--and that lowers BP as well, so I do fun stuff like black out.
But it seems to just be an issue of finding balance and getting to tomorrow.
If I get to tomorrow without any more cardiac issues, they will still wheel me downstairs to the fourth floor for a full Echo-cardiogram. It will be the first time since coming in that I will be wheeled away for...'a procedure.' Stefan used to get wheeled away every day. I was jealous. Now I get to go. Nya nya nya.
Barring a bad echo (echo), the whole cardius interptus thing may be over and we can get back to concentrating on the simple things in life, like cancer.
An informative day and a half. Nobody talked about cancer. I didn't have it, in a weird way. There was a new speed bump and that's all anyone worked on. Single-minded of purpose like a mutt going for marrow. And then moving on.
N took the brunt of the issues last night and this morning, and Mom and Jim did a mixture of babysitting and pig-iron-hauling today that woulda made a mule proud. I was actively told to lie the hell down and stay calm. Not that that worked, but still, I have walked to the can three times in 30 hours. That's it. And on the first try I passed out, so what do I have to show for it?
Well, I'm still here. There's that.
