Monday Memories (February 27, 2008)

It is time again for Monday Memories. This is a longer post but it is for my journaling purpose only (& Stephanie's). I will probably win longest post award but I don't care because like I said I decided it would be great to set aside one day each week to post about things that would be valuable to record........for myself and for my children to read later.

In October of 2007 Brett went to the doctor for an irregular heartbeat problem that he had been having for a while (at least a few years as far as he can remember). The problem would usually manifest itself while playing basketball. Symptoms were an irregular heartbeat , shortness of breath, excessive perspiration, etc. He would keep playing anyway (he's not too bright), although unable to play as hard (or well) as normal. The symptoms would usually last for quite a few hours and would be gone by the next morning. He never really did anything much about it because it was fairly infrequent (once every month or two) and when he plays it is usually late at night and too late to see a doctor.

One day his mom was over on a Saturday afternoon when he had gotten home from playing basketball. He'd had one of his episodes and she saw how bad of shape he was in and wanted to take him t0 the emergency room right then. But it stopped soon after that so he did not want to go. She made him promise the next time it happened that he would go. So, not long after that, it happened again. It was about 11:00 PM when he got home and told me that it happened again and he was going to go to the emergency room. I thought he was talking about his ankle because he has a bad ankle and hurts it once in a while when playing basketball. I was asleep and not totally with it when he came home but told him to call his mom and make her go with him. I didn't want him going alone. Now thinking back on it I really wasn't such a great wife sending my husband alone to the emergency room telling him to call his parents to go with him. But you have to understand that this had been going on for a while and we never thought it to be a big deal because he comes home, showers and goes to bed and in the morning feels fine. I also had to work at 3:00 am that morning so I needed my sleep, plus the kids were all asleep in their beds and I didn't want to wake them.

Well at about 1:00 AM he called me and told me that they had figured out the problem was atrial fibrillation, a condition where the upper two chambers of the heart (the atria) stop beating normally and just quiver rapidly. In addition to the noticeable symptoms, the biggest risk with atrial fibrillation is a greatly increased chance of a blood clot (due to the lack of circulation in those two chambers), resulting in a stroke, heart attack, etc. They were going to give him some medicine that would get the heart back beating normally and he would need to stay for about 4 hours before he could leave. He told me that his dad would come to our house so that I could go to work at 3:00 AM and he would sleep on our couch to watch the kids. I asked him if he needed me there but he said it would be fine and I could go to work. Well, I laid in bed for an hour and a half trying to decide if I should call someone else to go work for me but never did. He said he would call me with the progress. Well, I was really worried so I called him several times through the night. He was hooked up to a heart monitor and said it was still not back to normal. At about 5:00 am (while I was at work) he called me to tell me that the medicine was not working so they were going to have to sedate him and use a defibrillator to shock his heart back to normal. As you can imagine at that point I was really worried and felt like the most horrible person ever knowing that my husband was in the emergency room about to get this done with no one by his side (his parents had gone home at this point due to the doctors saying everything should be okay with them having given him the medicine). I was in tears at this point and could not hold it in. I tried calling someone to come in but was not successful and had to wait until 7:00 AM when I got off of work. I talked with his nurse and she said he was doing fine and his heart had been regulated but that I would need to come pick him up because he was not allowed to drive home by himself. I can only imagine what they were thinking about me not being there by my husband's side.

They referred us to Dr. Wang, who is a cardiologist, and said we needed to get in to see him right away. He was the doctor that they were consulting with all night in the ER and he was the one who told them to proceed with shocking his heart. When we went to visit Dr. Wang he verified the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. He said that it was a very rare condition for someone Brett's age – it is usually only found in senior citizens. He then ordered a cardiac MRI to get a good look at the heart's physical condition (one atrium slightly enlarged, but nothing too serious) and, based on that information, suggested a couple of possible treatments – daily medication to regulate the heart or a procedure called catheter ablation that could possibly fix the problem permanently (75-ish% success rate). The gist of the procedure is to send long, thin flexible tubes (catheters) into the heart through blood vessels (two in the neck and two in each side of the groin in Brett's case) and energy is sent through the catheters to basically cauterize (or burn) certain areas of the heart to block off the bad electrical pathways that can cause the fibrillation. We opted for the procedure, with medication in the meantime before the procedure could take place (end of February).

The procedure went well (according to Dr. Wang). Recovery time was just a week of laying on the couch and Brett was back to normal activity, including basketball. He had to take a prescription blood thinner for a while and have regular blood checks at the doctor's office, then the blood thinner was reduced to an aspirin a day. He hasn't had any problems since the procedure.

They had me feed him his dinner due to him having not eaten since the night before. I had to keep waking him up to feed him, he had no idea what was going on. He kept asking me the same questions over and over. He didn't believe some of the answers I was giving him either for some reason. He doesn't remember any of it either. He barely remembers me feeding him. It was kind of scary to see him acting this way but I knew he would be okay by morning. I felt a little bad leaving him at this stage but I knew he needed his rest.

The girls came to visit him after his surgery which took about 3 1/2 - 4 hours. He was totally out of it and did not even remember them visiting. They said it takes about 6 hours or so for the anesthesia to wear off. Whytli made him the sweetest little card at school that day for him and brought it. Mallory was really terrified and did not know what to think of her dad laying in bed there. Adelie wasn't quite sure what to think either. I just wonder what was going on in their heads.

I am so thankful that everything turned out the way it did. I do not know what I would do without Brett. He is such an amazing husband and father and we would not be able to function without him. He is such a big help and it made me realize how much I rely on him for everything. The kids and I love him so much and are very grateful for the way things worked out and know it is truly a blessing that it turned out okay.