It was determined that it would be best for me to make a trip to the hospital.

I wasn’t necessarily thrilled about this, but I wasn’t necessarily against it either.

I was actually scared “Poopless.”

My heart rate was low and blood pressure was fluctuating.

I certainly wasn’t gonna put up a fight…

In the midst of this decision-making, one of the EMS workers took my seventeen-year-old- blind and deaf terrier outside to pee, while another helped me upstairs to my room so I could get some presentable clothes on.

They were God-sends.

I can’t imagine what these individuals see on a daily basis, but they were willing and ready to do anything and everything to help keep me at ease and remain calm during a tense and stressful situation. God bless them all over again! And if you, dear reader, are an EMS professional, God bless YOU TOO!

There, in my driveway, my chariot awaited…

This was the first time I had ever rode in an ambulance before, as a patient anyway.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be my last.

In the next week, I would take two more trips to the ER within the confines of such a vehicle, getting to know a number of the emergency personnel that served my area along the way.

Thus, we will refer to this segment as:

ER Visit  #1

So basically, the PVC’s were going haywire, which still can be kinda, sorta “normal” at this stage in the game, but something you certainly don’t want to play around with (any type of heart rhythm change should be reported to your doctor, especially if it’s accompanied by dizziness, fainting or other symptoms). Add in the fact that the blood pressure thing was going on with me too, that made me a definite candidate for an escorted trip in.

We arrived at the hospital and once I saw an ER doc, they concluded that maybe the release type of my Metoprolol medication wasn’t the best fit for me.

You see, I was on what’s called Metoprolol Tartrate which is an immediate release tablet.

Keep in mind that Metoprolol was prescribed to me (and most OHS valve patients) to slow and steady my heart rhythm after surgery. When the Tartrate release would wear off nearing the next dosage, my heart would jump back into an abnormal PVC rhythm.

Tartrate was stopped and I was then prescribed Metoprolol Succinate.

This formula of Metoprolol is an extended released tablet, meaning the drug releases into your body slowly and more evenly. The hope was to avoid the extreme peaks I was experiencing as the Tartrate drug was wearing off, and to have a more consistent level of the medication in my system at all times.

I was then patted on the head and sent home on my merrily way.

This was a Wednesday.

I started the new medication that evening.

Shortly after taking my morning pill on Thursday, I began having the extreme dizziness and began feeling as though I may pass out, again.

I took my blood pressure.

It was seventy-five over forty-three.

I took it again, and again, as if doing so would eventually produce a normal reading. As if the blood pressure cuff itself was just joshing me, saying, “Aw, I’m just kidding ya! Really it’s normal!”

Normal didn’t happen.

The last reading I took was seventy-one over forty-one.

It was dropping and so was my heart rate.

Luckily for me, not him, (poor thing) my husband was home.

We called and spoke with a nurse.

She suggested we call 911, yet again, as the medication I had just taken would be lowing my blood pressure and heart rate even more.

Great.

Which brings us to ambulance ride and,

ER visit #2

This time I was admitted to the hospital overnight to be observed. This also meant having another heart monitor placed on me and another echo cardiogram performed.

The PVC’s were frequent, “bigeminy” they called it (or “Jiminy Cricket” as I called it) meaning just about every other heart beat was an abnormal PVC.

The low heart rate readings on all the machines were, in fact, caused by “The Cricket.”

The skipped heart beats were causing the pulse machines to actually not register those beats making my heart rate appear half of what it actually was.

Dang Cricket!

The Metoprolol Succinate was stopped and the Tartrate version was once again started with the dose doubled.

This was done overnight in the hospital and it was recorded that the PVC’s decreased and that it was well tolerated.

I was then sent home the next morning.

The dawn of following morning brought on another episode of a different sort.

A weird double vision occurrence.

Once again, it was right about the time that my next dose of Metoprolol Tartrate was due.

Feeling like a science experiment, over the next few days I rolled with the punches and continued to take the medication as prescribed hoping that my tolerance and symptoms would improve with time.

They did not.

I was home four days when the next extreme fiasco occurred.

Same scenario, extreme dizziness, thinking I was gonna drop out, took my blood pressure a zillion times and it, once again, was lowering. Called the nurse, she instructed me to then call my trusty friends at the rescue squad, and so on. You know the drill.

 

Resulting in, ambulance ride and,

ER visit #3

What do they say? Third time’s a charm?

I tried to imagine that the big white wagon that would transport me for a third time was part of my own private motorcade.

Didn’t work.

I didn’t feel like a celebrity or a president.

I felt like an idiot.

This whole thing was getting old. But still remaining scary non-the-less.

The PVC’s were happening just as often.

At the hospital this go-round there was talk of a pacemaker, and or, an ablation.

Seriously?!

Not that I doubted the docs here at all, but my first instinct was to call my cardiologist and surgeon in Cleveland, because, after all, they did the surgery. Just before any device was inserted or before any burning of the heart occurred.

My husband agreed.

There I lay in the ER bed, divided only by curtains which separated me from the other patients and doctors that continued to flow back and forth.

I called my Cleveland nurse.

When she answered I started whispering my scenario.

“Excuse me? What? I’m sorry Mrs. Archual, I can barely hear you? Can you speak up?”

I felt as though I was about to get caught red-handed doing something indescribable right there on enemy territory.

“No!” I whispered. “You see that’s the thing- I can’t speak up! I’m here in the ER now and I wanted to ask your opinion on all this…”

Why was I whispering again??

This was asinine that I even felt this way!

These are doctors that all want to help me, right?

After all, the lead surgeon here actually suggested that I go to Cleveland to get my surgery done to increase the chance of a repair verses a replacement. I had to remember we were all on the same page.

They were all part of my medical team, and any doctor who had my care as their number one priority would see it that way and would welcome another opinion, right?

This time, I was admitted for not one night, but two.

I was also introduced to an electrophysiologist which is a cardiologist that specializes in the heart’s electrical system and treats irregular heartbeats and arrhythmias.

Then there was talk of stronger types of drugs to steady my heartbeat first before ever really considering an ablation or pacemaker.

I was relieved.
I spent most of the entire first day in the hospital on the computer researching and reading info on these drugs.

My cardiologist from Cleveland called me and we discussed both the drugs and procedures. He even spoke to the doctor that was attending to me and they agreed on several other tests to take a closer look at the location of where the PVC’s were coming from. Two of the tests would be performed. An MRI and chest X-ray.

 

The nurse entered my room with a wheelchair to take me for the tests.

I explained I was perfectly fine to walk the trek, but was told that the wheelchair transport was “protocol.”

I sighed and sat in it.

I thought of my blog and how it was just supposed to be a few entries about my surgery before leading into the very quick and very easy recovery period and finally ending in a triumphant victory kicking back into the normalcy of my life.

I had already reached my six-week recovery period.

I knew this full well because I had been counting it down.

And where was I?? Not back on a greenway running three miles, but here, in the hospital!

For a third time!!!

This wasn’t supposed to happen like this!!

Had I known all this, would I have even started that stupid blog?!

Probably not.

I had in my little idiotic mind, as I do with everything, just how things were supposed to be and Dammit! Things were not turning out that way!

God forgive me, and I’m not one to cuss, but Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!!!

I had read books and columns from other OHS patients and how they went through something called “cardiac depression.”

I knew in the very beginning that this would NOT be me.

I wasn’t the “depressed type.”

When pre-planning my blog entries in my head, (pre-surgery of course) that would be an underlying focus for me: the positivity.

I would do my best to illuminate that in all my writing.

How, because I had bounced back so fast within my “six-to-eight-week recovery period,” I would give hope to those facing such surgery and through my journey and positivity, they would see that depression was not an option!

Oh my gosh… WAS I depressed??

I could feel the hot tears starting to swell up in both my eyes.

As the nurse wheeled me into the x-ray room I clinched my jaws tight in an attempt to hold back the dam that was about to bust.

A young girl was waiting for me in the x-ray room.

She approached me and was giving her introduction of who she was and why I was there in the same room with her.

Still facing a possible explosion of turmoil and the beginning of my pity party I was planning for myself, I tilted my head back to prevent the spill of tears down my face.

Once she looked up and made eye contact with me she stopped short in her intro speech. “Hey….

Aren’t you Ivy’s Mom??”

My emotions quickly shifted from a near outburst of sobbing to immediate laughter.

There you were God! Showing up with your clever and pristine sense of humor and at just the right time!

I quickly climbed out of the pity party pit that I almost fell into, and realized that although this was not part of my “planned” journey, it was part of my journey no less. I needed to face it full on…