We rang in the New Year with friends and had a great time doing it. But after that, lets just say it started off with a bang! Well, not literally, but it did start off with a hospital visit.
For many, many year Lee has had a heart condition called SVT, which is Supraventricular tachycardia. It's an arrhythmia problem where the heart will speed up and race like crazy until it resets itself into a normal beat. Typically he has 2-3 episodes a year and moves on with life. He's seen a cardiologist a few times with it and they've always said everything was normal.
Well, on January 2nd, he had 6 episodes within an HOUR. He had gone to work and then called as said, "Should I go to the ER?" Um, YES. Once there he had a big episode. The doctors and nurses swarmed in- that was a sight to behold, it looks just like the movies! Someone was putting in a IV. Someone was setting up and EKG. People were all over the place, doing their jobs. The thing that raised my eyes the biggest was when they were charging up the defibrillator. I guess if the medication they gave him didn't work, they would have to shock his heart back to normal. I'll admit, that freak me out a little. But thankfully he responded to the medication. After a little while they let us go with some medication and a follow-up with the Cardiologist.
He was starving, so we stopped at the local Panda Express that is around the corner from the hospital. We just barely ordering when he said, "Sarah! It's happening again!" So back to the hospital we went. We never got our food. (Later he regretted that!) When he walked in his heart was at 190 beats a minute. They took him right back, hooked him back up and that was the start of our 24 hour ER visit.
His heart went back and forth for the rest of the night. At one point it just kept on and kept on. We have no idea why it kept acting up. But luckily each time it did respond to the medication so they never had to shock him. When he had these events, his heart would jump to 200-215 beats per minute. Because it was technically a holiday (January 1 was a Sunday, so everyone had off work on January 2) the cardiologists weren't making rounds and there weren't any beds to move him into the actual hospital. The ER was packed, but the ER is where we stayed. All night. We didn't get any sleep. I think he was able to rest a little, but all they had for me was a very uncomfortable waiting room type chair. I remember thinking "I'm not going to make it... I'm so tired... there's no way I'm going to make it until morning...." But as each hour ticked away I would think, "ok, I made it until 2am... I can make it until 3. I made it until 3... I can make it until 4..." and so forth. Around 6am they moved us to a different room and around, 7am his Cardiologist came by.
He has since also seen a specialist- called an electrophysiologist. Basically what Lee has is something in his heart that is causing it to act up. The electrophysiologist goes into the heart, through the groin artery and takes a map of the heart. Once in there, he can fix it. It's one of 3 things and they are easily fixed. This way it never happens again. It's either that or be on medication forever. It can still happen on medication and while it wont kill him (He assured Lee of that!) it's very uncomfortable and can lead to another ER trip. Lee opted for the surgery. That is currently scheduled for the middle of March and he's on medication until then.
So while it was a scary 24 hours, the news was good and we are all ready for this to be over. I went to the ER originally that morning and by the time we knew we were going to stay the night it was pretty late. We had several friends offer to stay with the kids, but I talked to them and felt alright being by themselves. It was just overnight. I came home around 9pm to get a change of clothes and such. And then they went to bed a bit later and I knew they'd sleep in the next morning. Amy and Will have phones and we have great neighbors and friends close by. They did great. We were so proud of them! And it turned out that Will told one neighbor what was going on and she brought dinner to the kids! How nice was that!? They were well taken care of.
Mom and Dad were at Anna's and were willing to come down, but there wasn't much they could do so they stayed until Wednesday when they were supposed to come anyway. It was great to have them here though- just having another set of hands in case anything went wrong. Nothing did. And I was glad the kids hadn't started back at school- what a blessing that was! But Mom cooked, Dad cleaned and worked on a project, and we were able to get some rest. We aren't as young as we used to be! That 24 hours of being awake wiped us out!
But Lee is feeling great now. The surgery is scheduled, the kids are back at school and things are getting back to normal! But it was a certainly a "fun" start to the New Year! Geesh!!
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