Cardiac Ablation

I had a cardiac ablation at Mayo Clinic two weeks ago, so I’m here with another heart update.

Some Background

As you may recall from my original heart update post, once I realized that there was something seriously wrong with my heart, my doctor and I put together a plan of action:

Put in an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD)
Have open heart unroofing surgery
Get a cardiac ablation

After all those are done I should be, for the most part, “fixed”.

I had the ICD surgery on August 21 and felt pretty good post-surgery. Then I had the open heart surgery on September 18. I still get emotional reading this post about the experience.

It was 2 down, 1 to go!

I went back to Mayo in December to get the cardiac ablation done. Unfortunately, I found out that I had a blood clot and instead of getting the cardiac ablation I was hospitalized with anti-arrhythmia meds. I didn’t post anything specific about this experience (except a little bit towards the end of this post). I won’t lie, it was a pretty low point for me. I thought I’d be done with all this heart stuff and then found out that I had to wait another 6 months before moving forward. Very devastating.

Fortunately, when I went back to Mayo in May I found out that my blood clot was gone and scheduled the ablation for June 13. It was the happiest news! I was so excited to get the ablation on the calendar.

Pre-Cardiac Ablation

I had to stop taking my anti-arrhythmia meds 3 weeks before the cardiac ablation. This was to make sure that all of the drugs were out of my system prior to the procedure. Obviously, if I’m on anti-arrhythmia meds it would be difficult to get my heart into the VT rhythm that they needed to see in order to ablate.

I was nervous the entire time I was off the medication. I took it real easy and limited myself to 2-mile walks, slow biking, and light strength training. As always, it was more of a mental challenge than anything (story of my life).

My mom had been visiting me in Denver to help me send off Michael on the Colorado Trail and celebrate her birthday. The timing worked out well and we were able to fly back to Minnesota together on June 11.

The day before the cardiac ablation I had to go to Mayo for a few tests – x-ray, blood work, EKG, and device download – and a meeting with my doctor. During the meeting Dr. M walked me through the procedure and all the risks. Scary stuff! But I tried to focus on the good, AKA getting cardiac ablation.

I had to be at the hospital at 5:30am the next morning, so my mom and I had a low key night. It shouldn’t surprise you that the Hallmark Channel was involved.

For those of you that have no idea what a cardiac ablation is – because why would you? – here is the description from Mayo:

“Cardiac ablation is a procedure that can correct heart rhythm problems (arrhythmias).

Cardiac ablation works by scarring or destroying tissue in your heart that triggers or sustains an abnormal heart rhythm. In some cases, cardiac ablation prevents abnormal electrical signals from entering your heart and, thus, stops the arrhythmia.

Cardiac ablation usually uses long, flexible tubes (catheters) inserted through a vein or artery in your groin and threaded to your heart to deliver energy in the form of heat or extreme cold to modify the tissues in your heart that cause an arrhythmia.”

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

We got to the hospital at 5:30am, but I didn’t get down to the Operating Room until about 8:00am. There was a lot of “sit and wait” time. Fortunately, I got to hang out with my mom for the most of it, but then she was on her own to spend the next 7ish hours hanging out in the waiting room and walking around the hospital until I was out of surgery.

Once I was in the OR the team started setting up for the surgery. They were so friendly and chatty, which kept me at ease. After about 10 minutes they started the anesthesia and next thing I know I’m back in the prep room where I was prior to going into the OR. My anesthesiologist was there and gave me a quick update on how things went. I think. I don’t actually remember what we talked about, since I was still pretty out of it. I just remember that my eyes were super watery – because I always cry after coming out of anesthesia – so he gave me some paper towels to dry them off. I was in and out of sleep for a little bit after that, but then forced myself to stay awake because I knew that once I was awake they would bring me to my hospital room and I would be able to see my mom.

I’m thinking that I got up to my hospital room at around 3:00pm. My mom was there and it was so good to see her! I was so hungry and so thirsty, but felt pretty good overall considering the circumstances. She told me about her day around the hospital and then went to get me a smoothie while I rested a little bit.

My nurses came in to check on me regularly. They were waiting for my blood to thicken up a little bit, so that they could pull the catheters out.

Once they go the go ahead, two nurses came in and gave me some Fentanyl. I guess this was going to be pretty painful! On the left side of my groin I had three catheters that went up through veins and on the right side I had three through veins and one that went up my artery. They started with the left side. A nurse pulled out the catheters and then then leaned into my leg where the catheters were with his entire body weight until bleeding stopped. I can see why they gave me the Fentanyl. Then they did the right side. Since one of the catheters went up through an artery the process took much longer. I think this nurse was pushing down (very hard!) on my leg for about 40 minutes while I drifted in and out of sleep.

After the catheters were out I had to stay completely flat for 2 hours. Then I was able to sit up a little bit for another 2 hours and then at 11:00pm I could stand up and move around. As you can imagine, my hips were super sore, but walking felt very nice after laying in hospital bed for 16 hours.

I stayed in the hospital one night. I didn’t sleep much, because they didn’t really let me. I went to bed too late and then they woke me up every couple hours for various things – blood work, vitals, meds, etc). I felt ok the next day, but was just kind of blah and restless from sitting in my hospital room all day. We were able to leave the hospital that afternoon. I took a long nap as soon as we got back. Necessary. I felt kind of weak and nauseous for the next day or two, but it was still nothing compared to the recovery after open heart surgery!

Cardiac Ablation Outcome

Dr. M came to visit me about an hour after I got to my hospital room to go over how the cardiac ablation went. My mom had already given me the updates that she received throughout the procedure, so I kind of knew what to expect and knew that I wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.

Dr. M said that they weren’t able to get my heart to go into the Ventricular Tachycardia (VT) rhythm, which is the one that they were trying to get rid of through this procedure. She said they tried everything they could, but my heart wasn’t following the plan (what else is new). So they went to Plan B, which was to map the VT based on the EKG from when I went into cardiac arrest last August and ablate around the scar tissue at the tip of my heart.

Because of this it’s hard to know if the ablation was successful or not.

My reaction: severe disappointment.

The reason my heart didn’t go into VT was one of two reasons:

My heart is better
I still had anti-arrhythmia medication in my system, despite not taking it for 3 weeks.

It’d be great to say that #1 was the reason, but realistically it was #2.

Next Steps

I will get a stress test done here in Denver in a couple of weeks, where I’ll be on a treadmill connected to a heart monitor. I’ll start by walking and then they will slowly increase the speed and incline of the treadmill while doctors watch how my heart reacts.

I’ll give it all I got and one of two things will happen:

Go into VT
Nothing

Hopefully nothing happens and then I’ll know that the cardiac ablation was successful and that I can move on with my life. However, there is a chance that I will go into VT, which is absolutely terrifying. I’m still working with my doctors to plan what the next steps would be if I do go into VT. I will probably have to get another ablation done either right away or a few months later. We shall see.

How I’m Doing Now

It’s been about two weeks since the surgery. I still have giant bruises around my groin. These have been the largest, nastiest bruises I’ve ever had in my life. They started at about the size of a salad plate and were a mix of yellow, blue, and purple, but are getting smaller and less disgusting every day.

I also had a lot of soreness in my chest and upper body. It’s slowly going away, but for a while I was really nervous that something was wrong (like fluid in my heart), because it hurt every time I took a deep breath. I think I’m better now, but if it doesn’t go away completely I’m going to go in for an echo later this week.

Emotionally, I’m in pretty rough shape. I cry a lot. I cried when I said goodbye to my parents. I cried my way through the airport. I cried as I wrote this post. I cried while I was on the phone with the hospital setting up my stress test appointment. It’s a little much and I feel over dramatic, but I think it’s out of my system now. I hope it’s out of my system.

I was expecting that this cardiac ablation would be the end of this mess. That I would be done. That I would be “fixed”. I could be! And that would be great, but unfortunately at this point I still don’t know.

I’m constantly scared and paranoid that I’m going to go into VT. It’s difficult to explain and probably sounds silly. I try to be brave and I try to be strong, but it’s hard. It’s really, really hard.

I’m also really trying to be positive and trust that everything will end well, but this is starting to wear me down a bit, so it’s more difficult to remain optimistic. I try not to think about it too much. Except that I am writing all about it now, so I’m forced to think about it.

And now I feel like a jerk for complaining, because despite all of this mess I am quite lucky. I have family, friends, and a boyfriend that love and support me and I know that my situation could be so much worse than it is. I do feel grateful for this amazing life I’ve been given. I swear I do. Sometimes days are just a little more trying than others. All it takes is a little shift in perspective, along with writing out all my feelings, to get out of a funk. I feel much better now.

Thank you for the love and support xoxo