At approximately five this morning, I got up to go pee, looked in the mirror. I'm under 140, and I look it. I looked at myself and thought I had finally crossed the line towards cadaverous.
Likely not true, just a mixture of Ambien and fatigue. But it got my head whirling and I spent the next hour in the bed, actively not-sleeping.
While lying there I felt my heart knocking around in my chest. Knocking wrong. Like when I tune my old pickup and it doesn't quite roll through the cylinders. Kind of loping. Arhythmic.
This is the first point at which I do not wake N and tell her I feel off.
I have tried not to preach or order so far in this account, but listen to me: SAY SOMETHING WHEN SOMETHING'S WRONG.
God knows how many hours stress I caused myself, what I may have done, by delaying treatment. Just to be macho, just to 'figure it out' or be tough. Goddamn stupid.
An hour later I fall asleep, heart still knocking funny. I get up again at 7, hungry. I walk the four feet to where the oatmeal an aunt sent waits. I dig a plastic spoon from the pile. I sway.
OK, oatmeal's not gonna happen. I have the dim sense to just flop back in the bed and manage to kick off my sport-sandals and lie there, clutching a plastic spoon.
An hour later the nurse comes in to bleed me, and I tell her about it, but not with much gusto or concern. She goes away.
This is the second or third time I should have awakened N or called the nurse or DONE SOMETHING. Asshole.
When the Physician's Assistant comes in for morning rounds, I am unnerved enough FINALLY by my sideways knocking heart that I run her through what happened in the night. N awakens to this confession, is justifiably angry at me. The PA is bothered by what she hears and, though she doesn't say anything, is also clearly of the opinion that I am a dumb-ass of epic proportions.
Long story short: I am in A-Fib. The non-science meaning of that--and a rare silver lining of all this--is that I was right in my personal diagnosis during the night. My ticker is out of tune. It is loping on a broken three pattern as opposed to the good old four: at least that's what it feels like to me.
A-Fib is, more than anything, tiring. Jim has had it, and frankly had it much worse that I do now, so I should keep my yap shut, but it has halted all other discussions of health and numbers and counts and the like. It is a classic setback: just this new thing standing akimbo across my recovery, a new swamp to wade through.
And we waded all day. N, Mom, Jim. Bloodletting, ECG testing, monitors. Note to patients: getting an Arterial Blood Gas test from a dessicated and pred-thinned wrist, well, sucks. But I had the fun of asking the Drs if I would be on a Holter monitor--invented by a near branch of the family and so hence the name--and seeing their pleased confusion when I told them I was looking forward to it because it turns out that I am, in fact, Holter.
Instead I am on a telemetric heart monitor that sends wi-fi versions of my heart rhythms to the nurse's desk and some building uptown, but also apparently functions on the same radio wavelengths as NYC cabs. N posits that this explains their driving habits--peoples' wonky tickers bleeping in the background of their worlds all day.
Many possible causes have been ruled out through the day. Everything, it seems, is in order. This is good in that it means that a host of things that would have been bad and caused the A-fib are not the problem.
But that also means we don't know what is. Then again, who cares, just fix it, right?
I am on a 21-hour Heparin drip to thin my blood. This is because one sure-fire way to fix it is to shock me back into rhythm. You know, like on ER.
CLEAR!
That is not on the horizon yet, but may be. The Physician's Assistant who was very good to us all day has done two Ironman races, which makes me feel great. I was about to start training for my first. I have done two Half Irons, but was about to step up.
She understands that I do not, cannot, should not go through the rest of my life with chronic A-fib if it is at all avoidable. That an athlete really can't. I might have to stop running, swimming, biking, at least at the fun level where it hurts like hell.
So maybe I get zapped. Or maybe I get drugged. Or maybe I get a good night's sleep and it all goes away.
The other silver lining is that I am off the pred because it makes me jumpy and right now, jumpy gets to haul its sorry ass over into the 'not worth it' category. The Drs were consulted, and I am pred-free at least for today and maybe tomorrow as well.
My voice--strained to a pathetic squeak by the pred--has already fallen back to it's regular slot, which lifted a huge professional weight of fear from me. I woke up from a nap, started talking to Jim, and suddenly realized I recognized the voice I was hearing. That was a high point. It was good to have one.
So soldiering on. Setbacks are the rule, assuming it will all go as planned is just a fool's game, and we will wrap ourselves around this as we have everything else.
Annoying, not ruinous. Nothing a little chicken and rice and hulu with N can't fix.
