Return of a not so friendly visitor...
11:40 PMLooking fantastic at 5am with no sleep... |
So, last night we had a wonderful unexpected visit from a not so friendly visitor....my arrhythmia. I started having issues with my heart rhythm in my early teens, but was never given much information about it, and basically was told that it was due to hormones and nothing to be concerned about. I have had issues with it ever so often, and have had episodes less than 10 times since then, and it usually only lasts 30 seconds to a minute.
Last night around 230 am I woke up, got a nice drink of water and went to lay back down, and BAM it hit me like a ton of bricks. I literally felt like one of those old cartoon characters where you can actually see their heart beating out of their chest. I couldn't even count my heart rate, started getting short of breath, and was drenched head to toe in sweat...much worse symptoms than I had ever felt before. I got up went to try to bare down, cough, and do whatever I could to try to get it to stop without success. After 5 minutes and it not getting any better I decided it was time to get the hubs up and head to the ER.
Other than for a sprained ankle, I've never been to the ER as a patient. Kurt got me to the ER in about 3.5 minutes...rather impressive if I say so myself. We walked in, quickly were seen by the triage nurse who informed me that my blood pressure was 140/24 (yes 24) and my heart rate was 260 beats per min (yes 260!). I was quickly loaded into a wheelchair and off to a room to be seen by the doctor...and the waterworks began. I can honestly say I've never been so scared in my life. Not for me, but for our little man. I was having a hard enough time breathing and was in pain, and all I could think about was him and was he getting what he needed. After getting my hormones in check I stopped crying enough to try to bare down to get my heart rate to come down and get an IV in. It worked and my heart rate came down to about 140, and eventually down to 114. It was about 20 mins from when the onset happened to finally having it stop.
Turns out I was in SVT, google it. After labs were drawn, I had to take potassium because apparently mine was low, get an EKG, and sit and wait to see if I was OK to be discharged up to L&D for some fetal monitoring. At this point I honestly felt fine about me, but was still worried about little man. Right about then he gave me a nice kick in the very full bladder that I had from receiving a quick liter of fluid, and took one giant sigh of relief.
They decided I was good to go, gave me my discharge instructions and carted us up to L&D. We arrived up on the third floor, got hooked up to all the monitors, and little man started kicking away. His heart rate was fantastic hanging in the 140's-150's, and his amniotic fluid looked fantastic, and I wasn't having any contractions. After about 20-30 mins of monitoring him, we got a bonus ultrasound, and at 630 am were cleared to head home...thank God!
Basically, turns out I've always had this but SVT now is causing more problems for me. So, I have to see a cardiologist this week that is going to follow me for the remainder of the pregnancy. Then after little man arrives I'll need an EP study, and most likely an ablation to correct it after. However they informed me that pregnancy wise, we're perfectly healthy, and little man is fantastic. For now I just have to avoid all the fun stuff no caffeine, no chocolate, and I have doctors orders to avoid stress and get 8-9 hours of sleep per night!
Here's to being a giant bum!
I cannot forget to mention my fantastic hubs who basically was my rock through this whole event. I am so blessed to have him and to know how great he's gonna be to our little one.
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