Ablation time

I can’t stop my PVCs and they are getting so bad I want to lay down with oxygen. I don’t leave the house except for taxis to the hospital which wears me out. I don’t have the energy or strength to fly to the states or France. Each flight my o2 drops to 81-82. I chose private so I get two EPs instead of students/fellows/etc. he wants a TEE to confirm my watchman doesn’t have clots. He wants an echo and a type of scan that uses iodine (not a CT) which I’m allergic to. But because of my allergies he is accepting my cardiac mri I had a year ago..I hope it’s recent enough. It’s a two month waitlist. I’m seeing my pulmonologist this week because I have nocturnal hypoxia and he wants me next week to revisit the heart failure doctor. He wants me off Eliquis with my watchman 24 hours beforehand but since I still have afib he modified it to just hold Eliquis the morning of the procedure.

I’ve had 24 surgeries now, in June two cancer surgeries alone, the last one left me in 7/10 to 9/10 pain and it’s not healing. I also am positive and smile before each procedure but it’s my LV which I fear is more dangerous since I’m an iatrogenic magnet. So this one I’m very concerned about.

I expressed my fear of being wide awake. They will instead give me anesthesia for the groin cuts and then wake me up and see how my pain level is. If at anytime I can’t tolerate the pain they will use anesthesia. However my PVCs are totally suppressed with a Valium or sleeping. It’s to my advantage to suck up the burning pain and be awake. A NY surgeon I recently had a zoom appointment told me he’d rather ablate twice blind than keep me awake.

I was in my bomb shelter this morning at 9 and afree dinner from sirens. Valium helped my PVCs. Maybe I stopped caring and am immune to missiles like everyone else.

Question: when my PVCs get the worst I don’t get the big pee. Instead my vertigo acts up and I get nauseous, clammy and instant watery diarrhea. Enough that I could get a colonoscopy. Like for 8-12 hours straight.

I’m going to try an experiment and rent a hotel on the beach with crashing waves and see if I’m in NSR. I am seeking a miracle. My PVCs stopped in 2019 and 2021 and I dodged the bullet. Maybe I can do it again at the beach. Stress is my PVCs trigger.

Is this common? I heard of the big pee excreting volume so the heart isn’t stressed, is it the same with a big dump?

Not only common, but it's obviously natural for you, Susan. You're not experiencing anything artificial in the way of symptoms; they're precisely a measured response by your body to stress. Unfortunately, those symptoms can exacerbate the entire experience and perpetuate it, or help to sustain it longer than it might otherwise. Double whammy.

I feel for you. I really do. I think I would have packed it in long ago. You're the toughest person I know, by a long shot. Your brain and mind are strong, and you have a tremendous desire, a drive, to live and to conquer. The waiting will be tough, but anything you can do to find calm, to destress, to laugh, will help in the meantime. It it is to be ocean waves, the wind in the tree leaves, a solitary beetle trying vainly to climb over something...whatever takes your mind off your circumstances, there is where you would find me.

I wish you the best of Scottish luck.

Same here, Susan. Whatever luck can be wished for or given I hope you receive it. Prayers too.

Thank you for your kind words. My PVCs were intense last night and I was up the entire night with the runs. This time I threw up 8 times. So it’s a catch 22 with getting dehydrated from vomiting and not able to replace my electrolytes which messes up my heart.