For most of my life, I've had these episodes where I get sort of light-headed, dizzy, and nauseous. I always have to sit down, but I'm usually able to go about my business after 20 minutes or so. For the past couple of years, however, the episodes have become more frequent. Doctors have mostly said it was probably low blood pressure, and that things like increasing my sodium intake could help out a bit (finally, a legitimate excuse to eat a bag of potato chips every day!). Unfortunately that didn't seem to help, so my cardiologist decided it was time to explore another possibility: an accessory pathway. In short, my heart might have an extra electrical point that's not supposed to be there, causing my heart to beat irregularly sometimes. This can be a big uh oh. I wore a heart monitor for about a month, which unfortunately didn't show anything...
So about three weeks ago I had a procedure done called an E.P. Study. Basically, they threaded a couple of wires up to my heart through veins in my legs to monitor it and to see if I had this accessory pathway. If I did, they'd ablate it. If I didn't, well, we'd figure out what to do next.
I hate hospitals. I know most people do, I've never heard someone say "I love to go to the hospital," but this was just not a great experience for me. The whole not being able to eat starting from midnight the night before just makes me start off cranky. Then there was the nurses trying to get the IV in my arm. OY! Took them three tries, and it can HURT if they don't get it in the first time. So then we (meaning me and my mom, who had flown in from California to be with me through all this) had to wait. And wait. And wait some more. Finally in the late afternoon I had the procedure, which takes about 3 hours, and by the time I got out, I'd gone more than 15 hours without eating or drinking. Not good. I ended up having a bad episode in the recovery room, most likely due to low blood pressure from lack of eating/drinking. Which bought me a one night's stay in the hospital so they could monitor me. I know, it was for my own good, but having to lie flat all night and not turn over or on your side, on a very narrow bed, not my idea of a good time. Blech.
Luckily, I got to leave the next morning. My wonderful mom had me stay with her at a hotel, and my wonderful roommate came to visit me and brought me the cutest stuffed monster ever! I love it!
This gives you an idea of what mine looks like. Mine is yellow with green horns and with a pocket on the front. They're called Lyla Tov (which means good night in Hebrew) dolls. The best part is the monsters are designed by a kid! Who's like 5. It's awesome! If you want one either go the The Jewish Museum shop website or go here: http://www.lylatov.com/
And to top it all off, my amazing best friend from college sent me an edible arrangements with chocolate and peanut butter covered apples. Yummy!
Final results: not an accessory pathway. So I'll go back to the doctor soon and see what my options are from this point on. But so far I haven't had any episodes since my hospital stay. One of the things that's so annoying is that I can never predict when they'll happen.
So being in the hospital and having to go through all that was one of my big firsts. Tomorrow I will update with another one (that is definitely WAY more fun!!!)
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