Here I sit again in the hospital at Duke Medical Center

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Bryan B

Bryan B

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 16, 2004
Messages
1,898
Location
NC
This time it was semi-planned. I went in the hospital for atrial flutter on 5-11 and they were going to do a cardioversion but they had to scratch it after finding a clot in my heart during the TEE. I'm back but they haven't decided on whether or not to do the cardioversion or a catheter ablation. I guess I'll find out in the morning. This is assuming they don't find a clot during the TEE. I've been on Coumadin since they found the first clot so hopefully that has dissolved the one I had and prevented any more from forming. I'm also re-starting Sotalol which is the main reason I have to be in the hospital (for 3 L O N G days). It's 3 days of boredom with maybe a couple hours of excitement during the actual procedure. It will be the only time I get to leave the telemetry unit my entire stay. At least they have wi-fi so I can surf the net and they have 32" LCD flatscreen TV's with a decent cable selection.

I'll check back in tomorrow to let you know if the procedure was successful. It better be because I'm tired of my heart beating at 125bpm and that's on 360mg of Cardizem daily and 100mg of Lopressor daily.
 
Ross, is that because it's a more dangerous procedure? The cardio I saw today said they have a much higher sucess rate with the ablation than the cardioversion, and if the cardioversion didn't work they would then need to do the ablation anyway.
 
I think Cardioversion is less dangerous then ablation. At least with Cardioversion, they aren't actually destroying tissue.
 
Yeah they both have their own set of risks. Unfortunately I don't think I get a vote on which one to have...lol.
 
I have absolutely no clue which is preferable but I had an ablation for Atrial Flutter in April 2004 and I have been doing fine so far. My procedure went very smoothly since they had one electrical pathway to ablate and it was acting up for them, so they zapped it and that was that. Here's wishing you a successful resolution of the A-Flutter whichever route they choose.
 
I wanted to wish you good luck during your stay. I just finished 4 long days in the hospital. I didn't have wi-fi and had old TVs and limited service. It's good you can get connected and talk to the folks here. Just wanted to send you good wishes.

Pat
 
You are in a good hospital. We just returned from Duke. My oldest daughter had surgery there to correct scoliosis that had progressed since she had surgery many years ago. Her doctor was the best in the world and the staff and facility was great. Good luck and keep up posted.
 
Just a quick update. Last night I was sleeping peacefully and several nurses came rushing in to check on me. My heart rate had dropped into the low 40's and they gave me 3 bags of IV fluids to raise it back up. Upon further review I had taken my dose of Cardizem CD 360mg Tuesday morning. Then I got 2 doses of Cardizem 90mg after I got here (they use reguar Cardizem 90mg every six hours but they shouldn't have started it until this morning. I had my TEE which was a piece of cake besides gargling the lidocaince jelly before the procedure. They didn't find any clots so they have decided to do a catheter ablation as soon as my Coumadin level drops to 2.0 or less (it's at 3.6 right now). They might give me a dose of Vitamin K to help the process along. The good thing about having the alation is that I won't have to go on Sotalol. They chose to do the alation because they said there is really just one spot that they believe is causing the problem and the long term sucess is a lot higher with ablation than with cardioversion. That's it from Duke Hotel and Medical Center.
 
Bryan B said:
They might give me a dose of Vitamin K to help the process along.
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Bryan, ask for plasma instead of Vit K. If you need to start Coumadin back up again, the Vit K will have you sitting in that place for a week to get it back up.
 
Bryan, ask for plasma instead of Vit K. If you need to start Coumadin back up again, the Vit K will have you sitting in that place for a week to get it back up.
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Ross,

The EP docs came by this afternoon and said my INR level may only have to ~2.5 in order to do the procedure so they won't be using vitamin K. It's dropped from 3.8 to 3.2 in 24 hours so they are thinking by Friday morning I should be good to go. Also if the procedure is successful I won't have to take sotalol so that will save me 3 extra days in the hospital. Also if they do the procedure with my level at 2.0 or higher I won't have to go home on Lovenox. It might have been the nurse that mentioned vitamin K and so far they have been wrong more than they have been right when telling me what the doctors are planning on doing to me.
 
Almost looks like it's steering the course on its own, to get you through. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

I'm hoping everything continues to move you along the path to freedom from arrhythmia.

Very best wishes,
 
Bryan,

Good luck!!!! Thoughts/prayers en route.....



Cort | 36.m.IL | 5 Monte Carlos.1 Caprice Classic | pig valve.pacemaker * NoreastrTrekRT=Aug2010 *
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"I see clearly now" ... Nelly ... 'Over and Over'
 
There is no place like home! I had the catheter ablation yesterday afternoon and so far it seems to have been a success. My resting heart rate has gone from 125bpm to 75bpm. I'm pretty sore "down there" but other than that they kept me very, very, very, comfortable. The usedd a combo of versed and some kind of short acting fentanyl (forgot the name now) with just a touch of propofol when they started zapping the misfiring electrical "doodads" in the heart. They also "found out" (which a lab report almost 2 months ago showed) is that I have slight hyprothyroidism and put me on a low dose of Synthroid. They reduced my Coumadin from 7.5mg to 5mg because my levels kept coming back in the high 3's (last one was 3.8), but since they dropped my Coumadin to under 2 to perform the procedure I have to give myself Lovenox injections again for the next 4 days. I will be on Coumadin until my followup appointment in about 4 weeks and they may stop it at that point if everything is looking good.

Man it's boring in a hospital when you aren't very sick. I had a computer but I clicked on one page and it said "sorry, you have reached the end of the world wide web and must start over again". ;) I'm not a big TV watcher but I did watch a little tennis, golf, and the World Series of College Baseball. I'm just glad to be out of there since they almost killed me on Tuesday night. I think my "official" low heart rate was 40bpm although I thought I saw a reading on my individual monitor that said 28bpm. Let's just say almost the entire nursing staff came into my room while I was sleeping like a baby and woke me up. They started asking me all kinds of questions...was I dizzy, did I have chest pains, etc. and all I could tell them was that I felt fine besides being woken up. The same thing happened within a half hour and they got the doctor that was on staff overnight and they gave me three 500ml bags of NS and pretty much gave the first one as a bolus (kept squeezing it to get it into me fast. I had taken my 360mg of Cardizem CD that morning before being admitted. Once admitted they changed the order to regular Cardizem 90mg every 6 hours. Well they ended up giving me 2 doeses of the 90mg Cardizem before bed so I had received a total of 540mg of Cardizem that day along with 2 does of 50mg Metoprolol. Actually I think my heart enjoyed the rest after beating at 125-145bpm over the last 2 months. ;) THAT WAS A SERIOUS MEDICATION ERROR. Still thinking about what I should do about it because I wasn't too far from being in some serious trouble.

But I'm out and things are working better so far besides having a very sore groin (on both sides) and some very sore arms (had 7-8 blood draws in 3 days not counting the saline lock). :rolleyes:
 
I'm glad you are home and it looks like the procdeure worked. That is awful about your meds. Did they know you already had your 360 morning dose? Did you realize they were giving you more on top of that or were you really not paying attention? These are the kinds of things that happen in even the best hospitals, which is why I say, someone should try to be with you (not you specifically, just you in general ) as much as possible to keep an eye on things and question if something doesn't make sense. (like giving 2 more doses of a Med you already had your daily amount for )
I definately would be firing off some letters to the hospital complaining about it.
 
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Ross said:
I'd of been yelling at them to put a PICC line in!
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Justin's isn't a fan of PIC lines, unless he really needs one, (like for weeks worth of antibiotics) he had too many problems with his and it is a procedure to put in. But since he can be a hard stick (spending months in the hospital as a baby/toddler and quite a few surgeries after that) he likes when they use a saline lock (like an IV for anyone who doesn't know) for blood tests.
 
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