Now that I have access to wifi, I wanted to write about my Bordeaux experience. Let me first say that I can’t say enough good things about the quality of care that I received. The doctors were great. The nursing staff was impeccable, and everybody was very helpful. The procedure took 6 hours, and as I noted earlier Pr. Jais performed the PVI and Pr. Haissguerre performed the second half of the ablation. In my follow up with Pr. Jais, he noted that the ablation was quite complicated. I had had a sixty episode three years, so this revelation was not surprising. While people in the US have said that since your longest episode since the two month event was less than 24 hours, a PVI should do the trick, I never believed it and neither did Dr. Jais. All my American medical documents have characterized me as a paroxysmal afibber, while everything he has ever written has used the word “persistent.” His reasoning proved to be correct, and in attempting to terminate the induced episode, focal points in the left atrium were ablated, and a lesion was also created on the roof line. Yet AFIB was not terminated until a second lesion had been done in the right atrium. I was conscious the whole time thinking---when is this going to end? Even with Adenosine, the arrhythmia could not be re-induced, Subsequently, I have had two episodes on days two and three that lasted roughly four hours. I had diarrhea also on days two and three and very low K levels, so I have tried to convince myself that these events were an aberration----wishful thinking, maybe. Over the last three days, things have calmed down. Dr. Jais still puts the chance of success at 65%, however he did say that a second procedure may be necessary. I have already begun to prepare for this possibility. If this is the case Dr. Jais said that 80-85% of the work has already been done.
One note of interest is that I was asked to wear a 256 electrode vest made by Cardio-Insight,( I think I have the right name) a company in Cleveland. Similar to Dr. Narayan’s device, this vest can be used to measure precisely where errant electrical signals are coming from. Presently the information cannot be used during a procedure (now it takes about 2 days to analyze the data), but Dr. Jais thinks in the near term future that the time may come when this information will be available in as little as ten minutes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
My wife and I are staying in an apartment in Bordeaux. The weather is beautiful and we have been taking very leisurely walks. Unfortunately Dr. Jais said that having a glass of wine would be a bad idea; however he did suggest that we buy a bottle and celebrate in a month or two. Can you believe it, I am sitting in the most famous wine producing region in the world and I can’t even have one glass: life as an afibber.
While optimistic I still see a struggle ahead. The beast is difficult to subdue and I hope the ablation served as the proverbial stake in the heart. One other item of note, since they released me from the hospital a few days earlier the whole shebang excluding travel costs was roughly $14,000 --- quite a bargain considering the quality of the care.
Steve
