This Time Last Year

Today marks one year since my SVT episode landed me in the ER and then overnight in the hospital. I was 14 weeks pregnant then and was worried that my baby had suffered. Lucky for me he's just perfect!

At the time, the cardiologist told me that I would need to have electrical ablation done to prevent it from happening again (in other words a procedure where the doctor scars the "bad" neural pathway(s) inside my heart). I talked to everyone about this issue and asked who would be a good doctor to see for a second opinion. Cardiologist #1 is known for being pretty aggressive when it comes to doing surgery (rather than having a more holistic, "let's wait and see what happens" or medication/lifestyle management attitude). Eddie's doctor recommended someone to me and last week even THAT doctor said I need to have the ablation surgery!

He said the fact that my heart got up to 270+ BPM and that I had a rare polymorphic tachycardia happen after I reset my heart means that my heart REALLY didn't like it and it will happen again.

Lovely.

I'm still coming to terms with the idea of heart surgery. The good news is that the procedure has a 98% success rate for curing the problem. Which means I will qualify for life insurance again. The only downside is that there are risks, like any other surgery (puncturing a lung or vein, needing a pacemaker as a result, stroke). If the surgery doesn't fix the problem then I'll have to take a beta blocker for the rest of my life, which really isn't the end of the world.

Dave and I are trying to determine when I should do this surgery. It'll be after we go to France (so not too soon) but before I take my qualifying exam (so not too late). I haven't set the date for my exam but there's no way I'll take it before the surgery because I'll probably over-stress about it and set off my heart again. We'll probably wait until summer, when Eddie is much less dependent on me for his caloric intake. All total I should only be "down" for 3-5 days, which is great because I can basically take a long weekend from school for recovery.