Yesterday, Friday, I had the day off, planned to do some really fun things, including a haircut and shampooing the carpets. Living on the edge, I know.
Back track to Thursday night, I was having some high blood pressure issues along with a very rapid heart rate. When I first checked, it was 138 over 106 with a heart rate of 160ish. Yes, I know that diastolic number is high enough that I should have gone to the ER. Assuming this was just caused by work stress, that my home machine isn't entirely accurate, and being a tad stubborn that work stress could cause this, I didn't go in. This has happened several times over the past 8 months or so. Ignoring the advice of everyone I know, I would stay home and sleep it off. Go forward again to Friday morning. I wake up with the same rapid heart rate and the feeling of intense pressure in my head and neck, not pain, just pressure. It's never lasted this long before. My home machine would just error out for BP but gave my heart rate at 159, so, at the advise of my Dawns, (you know who you are) I stopped at the clinic on my way to the haircut to have a BP check. Great news, BP is fine, bad news, they were not happy that my heart rate was still around 160, somewhat jumpy and wouldn't go down, even after they had me try some really strange things. First she told me to breathe really deep and cough the biggest cough ever, over and over, then blow as hard as I could through a straw. I guess, doing those things can kick your heart rate back to normal. Consulting with a whole bunch of people, they decided they wanted me to go to the ER. This was going on about 14 hours with a heart rate that is way too high and she said my body can't operate like that safely.
Then she told me what they were going to do. To break the cycle of this high heart rate, they were going to give me a drug, Adensonine, or something like that, this would stop my heart beat. Then, if it goes as expected, the heart starts up at a normal rate. Seriously they were going to stop my heart, the one thing that keeps me alive. Do you have any idea of how terrifying that is? Someone I don't know or trust, was going to stop my heart. I guess, it's fairly routine, but not for me. I called John to meet me at the ER, he works in the same building, and yes, they let me drive myself, and yes the ER people said I shouldn't have driven myself.
After my second EKG of the day, the ER doctor, thought the problem was Afib, ( the two EKGs, while both irregular, seemed to have slightly different results) and then he decided that yes they would give me the heart stopping drug. Two reasons, one hopefully my heart would start up at the normal rate, and second, he said that while my heart is stopped he would be able to tell if it was Afib or not. Doc told me he had to wait a few minutes to do this because he wanted the "cardiac" cart in the room. Ok, I knew well enough what he meant, yes, I want the "crash" cart next to my bedside when you stop my heart. No need to pretend it's a 'cardiac' cart. Agreeing to do this was not an easy thing to do.
The actual experience was very odd. He told me that once they pushed the drug, they would push saline to get it to my heart faster and it would take about 5 seconds. When it hit, all I could feel was this intense feeling of suffocating, it felt like someone had their hands around my throat and they were choking me. It went away super fast, maybe 5 to 7 seconds, my heart started again, no need for that "cardiac" cart. My heart rate started back at a normal rate, around 100, still a tad high for resting, in my opinion, but back in the normal range. Whatever he was looking for to determine if this was Afib didn't show up, so it's not that, at least he didn't think so.
They did a lot of lab work, all of that was normal and good, actually, my labs were much better than they have been in the past, so that's a good thing. He didn't have much of an explanation as to why this happened, he didn't think work stress had much to do with it, although that could have been a trigger. (working in an airport during a world wide pandemic, no stress there) But he also said when people have a rapid heart rate due to stress, anxiety or a panic attack, it would not last 16 hours. So I get to see a cardiac electrophysiologist or something like that at some point. I also get to add a new drug to the list of meds I take daily, which is already showing signs of causing stomach issues like so many other meds do for me.
Anyway, that's my story. While this issue may be routine for people who work in the ER, nothing is routine when your the patient. When someone tells you he is going to stop your heart, even for a very brief moment, it's not routine. Its hard for me to put my safety in the hands of someone else, and since I didn't even know him, it was harder than ever. I miss my Grand Forks Doctor.
Thanks to Laura for nagging me to go in, for my Dawns who pushed me to go in and for Andrew who reassured me I wasn't going to die and he has heard of this before, that it wasn't some quack medicine thing. Thank you to John my wonderful amazing husband who stayed with me through my moment of "death". You are my rock, my anchor and I don't think I could have let them do that if you weren't there with me. Definitely a test of Faith.
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