Not The Best Of Days

7:23

8:39

It's 8:15, and Evie has just come down to join me for coffee. It's another spectacular lake morning, and I once again did not go out for a paddle, and I will explain why below.

Yesterday morning, I was up at 7:00, grabbed a coffee and went out to kayak. I pulled my kayak off the launch, sat in it, and had a hard time breathing. I just sat there, next to the shoreline, checked my watch, and realized I was in AFIB and my heart rate was 200. I was scared of passing out, so I sat there, took deep breaths until my heart rate went down, got out of the boat, and sat down on the grass once again because I was having a hard time breathing. Once I felt a bit better, I walked to the house and lay down because my heart rate once again jumped. My heart rate dropped to 110, so I relaxed until Evie got up around 8:30. We debated what to do and wondered if my dental surgery might have had something to do with my heart problems, so we called the dentist, but they seemed to think it didn't have anything to do with my heart's rhythm. We didn't know what to do so I got up, walked around for a couple of minutes, and it was hard to breathe again and my HR shot up to 177. So we called 911, and the guys arrived in maybe 15 minutes and hooked me up for an EKG and tried to decide what to do. They called a local doctor, and he talked them out of a helicopter and thought driving me to UPMC Hamot in Erie was a better option, 10,000 dollars less. So we drove to Erie, and during the ride, the medic gave me an anti-arrhythmic drug, Cardizem, and it seemed to work because my HR fell to the low 100s. He was a good guy, from Lakewood, and had been doing this for 34 years.

The hospital took me right into a room, fortunately, because people were waiting in the hallways for a room. There was an initial flurry of nurses, drawing blood, getting me hooked up to machines, taking an EKG, and xray. From then on, I mostly lay around, waiting for Evie who arrived soon after. My heart rate stayed at around 100, and I was no longer in AFIB. After talking to a couple of doctors, they explained to me that, according to Medicare, they could not keep me because I was no longer in afib and my heart rate was acceptable. Every time I got up, however, I had difficulty breathing for 15 seconds and then was able to walk normally. So we left around 3:30, after signing at least three documents, with no attempt to find out what was causing my problems. And so it goes. 

When I got home, I felt fairly normal except when I tried to do something physical, and I had a hard time breathing. So I just lay around, napped, and read and watched some TV. I had lentil soup for dinner and baked potatoes, both of which tasted good. It's difficult to eat because I am missing front teeth and the post that was implanted was still bleeding a little. Lots of fun. We watched a couple of shows before Evie went up to bed and I watched my show before going up to bed.

When I woke this morning, I had alerts from my iWatch that my heart rate and breathing were above normal, higher than usual.  I could tell because I had a hard time sleeping and woke quite a bit. My cardiologist's nurse called yesterday, and I told her about my problems, and she is supposed to get back to me today after talking with the doctor. My heart rate is still in the 80s or 90s when it's normally in the 60s and 50s when I sleep. A change in my meds may be warranted.