More Hospital Time

I had worn the event monitor for less than a week when I became violently ill while on a tour bus with the seniors, a long distance from home. I rode for an hour or more that way, and asked the bus driver if he could drop me off at a hospital in Sacramento. I kept pushing the button on the monitor to record what was happening.

The hospital coincidentally was a cardiac hospital, Sutter Memorial. The ER doctor called Florida to transmit what had been recorded on the monitor. I was admitted after receiving lots of care in the ER, and spent all week in the hospital. I had more events, and when the cardiologist came to see me (I had other doctors in the meantime), he stated that I was going back and forth between bradycardia and tachycardia and I needed to have my heart
stabilized. He planned to install a pacemaker immediately, doing so on New Year's Day.

This does not take care of the atrial fibrillation, and I'll always have my grossly enlarged right heart (term of various doctors).

Recovering from the surgery has not been fun - I have never seen so much black & blue, actually purple. I have managed the pain with acetaminophen. As each day goes by, I feel better, of course. I can notice the difference in the way my heart feels, also. When I am in atrial fibrillation, it is very noticeable, because of the size of my heart, but I can tell that the rate is much more even. That is a good feeling. Now I just have to stay away from all of the things that will ruin the pacemaker.