Heart: It's a BIG Deal!

When you tell people you are having something done to your heart the reactions are quite extreme. Most people make a shocked face and say they will pray for me. I was the same at first, but now I just think of it as another organ, a quite fascinating one actually. 

Friday, June 14th I went in for a heart ablation (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cardiac-ablation/my00706) to hopefully get rid of my Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) (http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/tc/supraventricular-tachycardia-overview). When I was first introduced to the idea of an ablation I was like, "no way! anything near my heart would be terrifying! I'll just live with it." Then after about a year of living with it I was so ready to give it a try. I actually had the procedure scheduled for April 13, 2012 but my plans were put on hold when sweet Izzy came along and I got that positive pregnancy test on March 3rd.
Being pregnant with SVT was the worst (well I'm sure there are worse things but it sure sucked) I was having episodes (bad ones) about every 2 weeks. A coworker had to call me an ambulance when I was about 6 weeks pregnant and on my birthday I had to be rushed to the hospital because it was so bad. I decided then it was time to get it taken care of.
I got an echocardiogram and multiple EKGs and some blood work and met with the Dr who would do the procedure:

Dr William Boch~ this dude hung out in my heart

He explained how it would work and gave me some brochures. He was super cool and laid back but also very intelligent. I kept staring at his hands and thinking...I hope those hands don't kill me! haha

My sister Marisa came the night before to watch the kids so Kary and I could leave super early to make it to the Pineville Hospital almost an hour away.
The morning of the procedure I was pretty chill. I was actually more concerned about Izzy because she was not feeling well. I wore a bright pink wife beater and some sweats (straightened my hair and put on full face of makeup...ha) and we were off.
When we got there they called me back to patient registration right away. The lady was nice and got all my info and gave me my hospital bracelet. We sat in the waiting room a few minutes and then they took me back.
I put on a hospital gown and they started an IV and hooked me up to a bunch of monitors. It was nice to be in a comfy bed with no one demanding things and I love their warmed blankets.
Kary came back and it was now about 7am. My procedure was scheduled for 8am so I was hoping to move things along. As they were prepping to take me back, a nurse popped her head in and said that they were going to have to push my procedure back 2 hours due to an emergency case. I was, of course, understanding but the emergency part was kind of unsettling. Apparently, the guy had an ablation the day before and they had to "go back in." Yikes.
We sat for what seemed like forever and finally it was my turn. I said goodbye to Kary and my "bartender" who reminded me a lot of ellen took me down a very long hallway. I saw doctors and nurses looking at me and they all looked kind of surprised that I wasn't 80..ha.
When I got in the room I was transferred to a very hard skinny plank. It looked pretty much exactly like this:

not me or Dr. Boch but exactly what I remember except they were flat screen monitors not like these 1990 ones...ha

The ladies attached about 100 (no joke) sticker heart monitors to me. One woman was giving me a hard time saying I needed to fatten up and didn't have enough surface area to place all the monitors...ha. It took a long time to prep me and then finally I got some drugs. I could feel the cool stuff go through my IV and immediately felt calm. (although I really wasn't very scared..it was weird) During the procedure I went in and out of consciousness. I felt TONS of rapid heart palpitations. Every time I was shot with adrenaline my heart would go CRAZY. It went on for 4 hours. Finally, I came to and the nurse told me that we were just waiting to see if my heart had any other places that would beat rapidly...Finally, I was done and it was time to go to recovery.
In recovery I had a grilled cheese sandwich (hospital style...ick) and hung out with Kary. We had to stay 4 hours and I was not allowed to lift my head (much harder than it sounds) I watched crappy tv and tried to enjoy some time when I didn't have kids demanding things but was still bored and antsy. Finally at about 7:20pm we started getting ready for discharge. The nurse came in and said we'd actually have to wait until 9pm. We were both like WHAAAT???! I had to pee so bad and hadn't gone since about 8am so the nurse (who said we had to stay til 9) kicked Kary out and I got to experience a bed pan...gross but pretty convenient. Then the nurse came back in to inform us that oops, she miscalculated and we could go home now and then apologized for making me pee in a bucket when I really could have gotten up and went in the toilet...eh. The nurse put on my clothes, shoes, pushed me in a wheelchair, and even buckled my seat belt (she was slightly stalkerish) and were we finally on our way home.
About 2 days later I started getting really bad flutters and skipped heartbeats. It was BAD. Kary called off and we went to see Dr. Boch. He did an EKG and said I sounded perfect. He hooked me up with a heart monitor to catch them for the next week and assured me that this is normal after the procedure and they should slow down. They have :-) I am done with the monitor tomorrow and then we will see what exactly was/is going on. For now, I am remaining positive that it worked and my quality of life will be much better. I am sick of being worried every time I bend down. Here's to a happy, healthy heart! <3 br="">