ticker gone mad, part II
Sep. 21st, 2007 09:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
piranhasome of you may remember that i had a lengthy episode of heart arrhythmia which i figured was supraventricular tachycardia in february (on valentine's day; i am such a romantic).
this morning i woke up after just a couple of hours of sleep, and found myself in the same predicament. ok, i can take the hint. i threw on clothes and went into the living room to ask the paramour to call an ambulance.
which came (actually two came -- slow day?) speedily, manned with 2 competent EMTs and 2 who were still learning. i got hooked up to their portable heart monitor, and while in the ambulance i got two chewable aspirin and a spray of nitroglycerin, and some saline (the guy who did the iv was very good; in a moving truck with my veins not at their best, it didn't hurt much at all). they took me to hospital where i got hooked up to all sorts of spiffy equipment, and the very friendly dr dibney with an amazingly nice (my kinda nice, banter and all) bedside manner did a quick exam (listened for murmurs), and tried the usual simple tricks to get my ticker to right itself. which failed. he and gary the scot argued a little about what they were seeing ("doesn't look like normal v-fib" "you think?" "yeah, weird morphology"), which was entertaining. since they weren't sure what they were seeing, they decided they would give me adenosine.
dr dibney explained how that would make me feel quite bad for a moment, give me a feeling of doom, but that it would hopefully (*heh*) pass quickly. which it did. whoa, and i thought i was feeling pretty doomy before. now i know what REAL imminent death by ticker failure feels like. very educational. both looked at the heart monitor and nodded at each other "yup, v-fib". the adenosine did however not fix anything (ergo there was no abnormal electrical pathway in the heart).
dr dibney explained how there were different approaches to handling this, but how he liked to give the heart a few chances to just fix itself before embarking on the others, so he said he'd like to do cardioversion. which is a procedure in which a synchronized electrical shock is delivered to the heart through special electrodes glued on the skin of the chest and side. the idea is to disrupt the abnormal electrical ongoings in the heart and to restore a normal heart beat. the shock causes all heart cells to contract simultaneously, which interrupts the abnormal electrical rhythm. the interruption allows the heart's electrical system to restart itself and return to a normal heartbeat.
ok, i knew what it was, let's do it. they had a respiratory tech join, since they actually sedate you just a wee bit. that's pretty amazing; i never knew i was out, and i didn't remember a thing (electrical shocks are painful). better living through chemistry. and my heart very obediently returned to beating normally. i stayed in bed for a while for continued monitoring and to let the sedative wear off, then we talked about what's gonna happen now (they took blood for tests, and are scheduling a full ECG), and i could go home. 2.5 hours total. t was a very quiet morning in the ER.
so this can be one of basically 4 things, since i am not doing either illegal or legal drugs or seem to have anything else going on that could cause the SVT: hyperthyroid problem (unlikely since i was tested for thyroid disease a few years ago by my shrink to rule that out as a cause for the depression, and many of the symptoms don't fit). ischemia (heart trauma following a heart attack) -- unlikely. structural problems in the heart -- unlikely, he didn't hear anything. and my favourite: cause unknown. it's slightly possible that dehydration could be the cause, but i don't think i was that dehydrated. in retrospect i did drink little the last two days, but i've been dehydrated, and this wasn't even close. contrary to last time i've eaten well this time; lots of vegetables and fruit.
i feel a little wobbly, and will go back to bed now. the paramour was a champ; everything worked like a well-oiled machine; zie even brought a smut manga to hospital for me. :)
this morning i woke up after just a couple of hours of sleep, and found myself in the same predicament. ok, i can take the hint. i threw on clothes and went into the living room to ask the paramour to call an ambulance.
which came (actually two came -- slow day?) speedily, manned with 2 competent EMTs and 2 who were still learning. i got hooked up to their portable heart monitor, and while in the ambulance i got two chewable aspirin and a spray of nitroglycerin, and some saline (the guy who did the iv was very good; in a moving truck with my veins not at their best, it didn't hurt much at all). they took me to hospital where i got hooked up to all sorts of spiffy equipment, and the very friendly dr dibney with an amazingly nice (my kinda nice, banter and all) bedside manner did a quick exam (listened for murmurs), and tried the usual simple tricks to get my ticker to right itself. which failed. he and gary the scot argued a little about what they were seeing ("doesn't look like normal v-fib" "you think?" "yeah, weird morphology"), which was entertaining. since they weren't sure what they were seeing, they decided they would give me adenosine.
dr dibney explained how that would make me feel quite bad for a moment, give me a feeling of doom, but that it would hopefully (*heh*) pass quickly. which it did. whoa, and i thought i was feeling pretty doomy before. now i know what REAL imminent death by ticker failure feels like. very educational. both looked at the heart monitor and nodded at each other "yup, v-fib". the adenosine did however not fix anything (ergo there was no abnormal electrical pathway in the heart).
dr dibney explained how there were different approaches to handling this, but how he liked to give the heart a few chances to just fix itself before embarking on the others, so he said he'd like to do cardioversion. which is a procedure in which a synchronized electrical shock is delivered to the heart through special electrodes glued on the skin of the chest and side. the idea is to disrupt the abnormal electrical ongoings in the heart and to restore a normal heart beat. the shock causes all heart cells to contract simultaneously, which interrupts the abnormal electrical rhythm. the interruption allows the heart's electrical system to restart itself and return to a normal heartbeat.
ok, i knew what it was, let's do it. they had a respiratory tech join, since they actually sedate you just a wee bit. that's pretty amazing; i never knew i was out, and i didn't remember a thing (electrical shocks are painful). better living through chemistry. and my heart very obediently returned to beating normally. i stayed in bed for a while for continued monitoring and to let the sedative wear off, then we talked about what's gonna happen now (they took blood for tests, and are scheduling a full ECG), and i could go home. 2.5 hours total. t was a very quiet morning in the ER.
so this can be one of basically 4 things, since i am not doing either illegal or legal drugs or seem to have anything else going on that could cause the SVT: hyperthyroid problem (unlikely since i was tested for thyroid disease a few years ago by my shrink to rule that out as a cause for the depression, and many of the symptoms don't fit). ischemia (heart trauma following a heart attack) -- unlikely. structural problems in the heart -- unlikely, he didn't hear anything. and my favourite: cause unknown. it's slightly possible that dehydration could be the cause, but i don't think i was that dehydrated. in retrospect i did drink little the last two days, but i've been dehydrated, and this wasn't even close. contrary to last time i've eaten well this time; lots of vegetables and fruit.
i feel a little wobbly, and will go back to bed now. the paramour was a champ; everything worked like a well-oiled machine; zie even brought a smut manga to hospital for me. :)
no subject
on 2007-09-21 18:08 (UTC)You are amazingly calm and collected about this -- I wish I could emulate you!
calm
on 2007-09-21 23:08 (UTC)but yeah, i am glad for it, and that it came to me without me having to consciously work hard.
thanks for your good wishes!
no subject
on 2007-09-21 18:14 (UTC)There are two "I" words you NEVER want to hear a physician use: idiopathic and iatrogenic. Trust me on this.
I'm glad to hear it wasn't anything worse.
Have a great weekend, preferably relaxing & well-fed & -watered. (Gotta keep those electrolytes in balance!)
two "I" words you NEVER want to hear a physician use
on 2007-09-21 23:13 (UTC)idiopathic i am fairly familiar with, cause this isn't the first thing that might have an unknown cause for me. i don't like that diagnosis because i always want to know exactly how something works, but i am almost expecting it here.
thanks!
no subject
on 2007-09-21 18:15 (UTC)I have a mitral valve prolaspe and under certain conditions (stressed, cold, sleep depped, under-fed) I used to go into tachycardia. Whee, 180 beats a minutes for hours on end.
Which, you know, kind of hurts and makes breathing difficult. And I was being seen at a small military hospital, with the never see the same doctor twice thing resulting in me having the same damned blood tests done every time no matter how loudly I pointed out the results of the last five sets were right there in my records, dammit.
It doesn't happen any more. I'm better about getting the right amount of food and rest. I'm more vigilant aobut not getting chilled or over-exerting when stressed. I can recognise the triggers and avert onset. *pause to knock wood*
But man, there aren't many things that match 'my heart is doing something wrong' for oddness and doominess.
Feel better soon.
medical experiences
on 2007-09-21 23:27 (UTC)i know so many people with horror stories, but i have only one dastardly one myself, and that was with a dentist (which led to a phobia i still haven't conquered); i consider myself very lucky (because it isn't actually anything i do, i've just tended to fall in with good medical people).
but i find it very encouraging that you taking precautions is quite probably managing your tachycardia well. because i can do that, if that were to help with mine. it'll be difficult because i don't normally pay attention to my body, but i've pretty much expected that as i am getting older, one day i would have to change my attitude about it.
But man, there aren't many things that match 'my heart is doing something wrong' for oddness and doominess.
no shit. i was doing better this time in the being scared category, since hey, it happened once and didn't kill me then, and i learn a lot from such experience. but the physiological effects are really strong, and it takes a fair bit of psychological effort to stay calm. i was glad i had a bantering set of health care professionals; that helped.
Re: medical experiences
on 2007-09-22 03:28 (UTC)I have learned over the years, just how far I can push it beyone warm/fed/calm/rested before I am liable to have what my cardiologist at the time called 'an untoward incident'. And I've had to learn to be very firm with myself and others about those boundaries.
'No, I know I look fine, but I cannot do X without causing myself an untoward incident.'
I've also cut out most caffiene, going on twenty years now. I still miss real coffee. I will not give up chocolate because, damn it there are limits. Regular exercise helped tremendously for me, but has been less useful to others with similar problems.
Mostly it's about tradeoffs. If I want to go to a con and dance the night away and stay up way too late then I need to be vigilant about getting my meals and avoiding drama or getting chilled, for example. I make my choices and I decide what matters.
The two most annoying things, aside from the doomy stuff are that since it's not a visible problem I run into people who don't want to believe me when I set boundaries and the other would be the whole unsolicited advice thing fro mpeople who don't believe that no matter what Mummy Dear's doctor told her to do it may not apply to me. Grrf.
no subject
on 2007-09-21 18:32 (UTC)no fun
on 2007-09-21 23:29 (UTC)thanks!
no subject
on 2007-09-21 18:35 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-22 00:14 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-21 18:41 (UTC)Look after yourself!
staying hydrated
on 2007-09-21 23:32 (UTC)thanks. :)
no subject
on 2007-09-21 18:51 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-21 23:33 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-21 19:20 (UTC)Take it easy.
about telling others
on 2007-09-21 23:43 (UTC)it's interesting about the telling. after the last episode i had i decided not to say anything more about it. i generally don't when i have active issues because yakking about it doesn't help, it makes things worse (too much focus on what's wrong in a non-mitigating way). also, people often do things (well-meaning, i know) that annoy me. such as push me to do X when i already know i should but am not doing (yet) -- and pushing makes me _less_ likely to do it. it's a crap cycle and i try to avoid it.
but i am calm about this. i made my peace with lots of things after the last one, and i have a course of action, and there isn't much anyone can do other than relay zir own experience (which i like) or wish me well (which is nice). so keeping people informed in a calm way might help somebody else down the line when they have a similar experience, and that's a good thing. and, should i shuffle off for good because of it, at least it doesn't come out of the blue.
Wait a second ---
on 2007-09-21 19:37 (UTC)@%<
Re: Wait a second ---
on 2007-09-21 23:45 (UTC)Re: Wait a second ---
on 2007-09-22 02:47 (UTC)Re: Wait a second ---
on 2007-09-22 03:25 (UTC)but maybe i'll tell you anyway, *cackle*.
no subject
on 2007-09-21 19:54 (UTC)I'm glad it worked, and I hope that they figure out (1) what it is and (2) that it's something very minor and treatable (if treatment is even needed).
Ctrl-Alt-Del
on 2007-09-21 23:46 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-21 19:54 (UTC)Good wishes to you!!
no subject
on 2007-09-21 23:47 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-21 19:55 (UTC)scary
on 2007-09-21 23:49 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-21 21:06 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-21 23:50 (UTC)Owwww! Quit it!
on 2007-09-21 21:49 (UTC)Re: Owwww! Quit it!
on 2007-09-21 23:52 (UTC)i swear i am not a fatalist. :)
thanks.
no subject
on 2007-09-21 22:26 (UTC)fascinating
on 2007-09-22 00:01 (UTC)the whole thing was less scary than the last time (when i didn't go to hospital). because i once was a medical professional i tend to not get extra anxious around ambulances and hospitals, but rather the opposite, because hey, we're doing something about this, and we have a lot of know-how to throw at it.
thanks!
no subject
on 2007-09-21 23:21 (UTC)creepy doom
on 2007-09-22 00:07 (UTC)Re: creepy doom
on 2007-09-22 02:50 (UTC)That thinking doesn't come naturally to me. I naturally think of myself as one entity and my body as a separate one, so when something so simple as a drug administered to my body has a huge impact on how I think, it would be a very bizarre experience. Particularly when it's not a subtle effect but an immediate crash like that.
Re: creepy doom
on 2007-09-22 04:18 (UTC)and i know mind/body duality is a crock; everything we are is chemicals (IMO, not having any belief in a soul). i've seen in clinical settings what chemical imbalances can do to people's personalities and thught processes, which is why i believe "not guilty by reason of [temporary] insanity" is a legitimate defense. and i've got the experience myself with anti-depressants.
but still, on a day to day basis i act as if we are two different things, my body and my "self".
no subject
on 2007-09-21 23:53 (UTC)my partners rock
on 2007-09-22 00:12 (UTC)and the paramour totally rocked. i never expected zir to actually bring me smut manga to read (and zie even picked something with a non-smutty cover so no unsuspecting nurse's eyes would get sullied)! i am sometimes more worried about zir than about myself, but zie wasn't panicking at all, and everything was excellent.
no subject
on 2007-09-22 00:47 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-22 01:31 (UTC)thanks!
no subject
on 2007-09-22 01:33 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-22 03:07 (UTC)Fifteen or so years ago I went to the emergency room feeling like my heart was racing and skipping beats and so on, was diagnosed with panic attacks due to stress, and then, being in the USA, in the process ran up some big bills to add to the stress.
no subject
on 2007-09-22 07:08 (UTC)I changed a few things in my life to reduce the stress level, the most important of which, I feel, was switching to caffiene-free cola, and, sure enough, it went away and hasn't returned since.
Being in Canada, there were no big bills involved, though my taxes might have gone up by a cent as a result. (Hmm. On re-reading, that sentence sounds smug. It was intended simply to sound grateful.)
no subject
on 2007-09-22 19:03 (UTC)no subject
on 2007-09-23 00:06 (UTC)No, for me that was before I started to work with Maya. In fact, one of my stress-reducing moves was to quit my existing job and go to work for Alias, where I worked on PowerAnimator and Maya.
So you could say that working on Maya was part of the cure, for me.
Now Mental Ray for Maya, that is a major stress inducer.
no subject
on 2007-09-23 13:31 (UTC)That adenosine experience sounds like one I'd never want to go through, that's for sure. Scary stuff, that they can induce that kind of feeling. Makes you wonder how they found it - made me think of a torture application (cynical me).
no subject
on 2007-09-29 03:13 (UTC)<3333
no subject
on 2007-10-04 10:42 (UTC)