Twenty-four hours from now, I should have been on a plane heading to LA, starting my long multi-flight journey to Puerto Natales, and the start of my Patagonia/Iguazu Falls trip. Unfortunately, a gorilla got in the way. What? Let me explain.
You sometimes hear people refer to “the elephant in the room”, when there is something going on in your life that you don’t really want to talk about. When my wife was diagnosed with glioblastoma, that became the “gorilla in the room”. Even the oncologist used that term, rather than talking about the eventual outcome. Well, as it turns out, I have my own gorilla….my heart.
As of last Thursday, I was all set to go on the trip – my camera bag was packed, having managed to get the weight down to 17 pounds, and the one suitcase was 99% packed – just a few last minute items to include in the morning. I had done some research on street photography in Puerto Natales, and had a detailed plan on where I wanted to wander to when I got there. I even had a list of the wildlife I might see on the trip. I was just raring to go.
Now as I mentioned in a prior post, I’ve been dealing with a significant cardiac issue since the SVT ablation procedure I had in September. I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, aka AFib, a non-life threatening but very impactful condition where the heart basically goes insane for a long period of time. My gorilla. This may have been triggered by the ablation procedure…or not depending on which cardiologist you talk to. It is a miserable feeling when it hits – depending on the intensity and duration, you may be limited to what you can do during the episode. I had one of these a week ago which lasted about 16 hours – it was difficult getting up the stairs in my house, but I managed to tough it out knowing that it would end. I met with the electrophysiologist’s nurse the following day, and was given the green light to go on the trip – I wasn’t going to die from an episode or require a medical evacuation, but I might not be able to go on some of the activities. That seemed like a risk worth taking. I really wanted to go on this trip. Staying home, bored out of my mind when I could at least be taking photographs from the ship or a Zodiac boat, did not seem like an option. But, I was not totally ignoring the gorilla – I decided that as long as the AFib did not get any worse before departure date, I’d go – I had trip insurance, and had already spoke with National Geographic about cancellations.
So of course, with my four year streak of really bad luck, the gorilla made it’s presence known. About 3AM on Thursday morning, I started getting a dull pain in my neck and shoulder….on the left side. The pain rapidly spread to my chest, so that by 5am, I could only take very short breaths. Heart attack? It kind of felt like it, although there were no other signs. Breathing is kind of important, so I texted a friend who happened to be up early, and he drove me to the emergency department of my health provider (UC Davis). I learned a long time ago that if you want immediate response when you are triaged at an E/R, always tell them the pain level is a 10. When I stumbled in and told them I think I’m having a heart attack, I was whisked in immediately.
For the next few hours, I was poked and prodded by a stream of doctors and nurses, had a chest x-ray, a CT scan, multiple EKG’s, and at least one echocardiogram. Nothing they did fixed the chest pain, but they at least concluded that it was not a heart attack. Phew. After many frustrating hours, another technician came in to do yet another echocardiogram (it’s just an ultrasound of the heart), and while he was poking me with the probe, my cardiologist showed up to save the day. He looked at the screen and immediately knew what was wrong – I had pericarditis, and inflammation of the heart lining. I had fluid between the layers of the lining, and the inflammation brought on by the ablation procedure results in the chest pain. This can be a very serious condition, but it can be fixed usually with medications. Good news. The bad news was that they wanted me to stay overnight so they could monitor my heart after I take the drugs. Lucky me.
I think when Don Henley wrote the lyrics for Hotel California, the famous line “You can check-out any time you want, but you can never leave” came from a visit to an emergency room. Since I was there for at least one night, they moved me out of the E/R into a nicer room in a quiet ward. By then, I was starting to feel a bit better from the drug, and could walk around – that was important since there was a bathroom across from my room. Woo hoo. I was still hooked up to a monitor, but they let me disconnect myself if I wanted to get out of bed. My stay was now managed by the cardiology team, also a good thing.
I managed to get some sleep that night, and was feeling pretty good by 6AM. The drug they gave me seems to have worked – there was still some pain, but I could almost breath normally. A cardiologist checked in on me early, and told me I would be released that morning. But, I was told that traveling was discouraged. My cardiologist had said the same the day before – this condition was serious, and it could flare up again. Plus, I would need to have checkups the next few weeks. Bummer.
Here’s where the Hotel California comes into play. All the discharge paperwork was ready by 10:30AM, but they needed final approval from my cardiologist. Who was doing surgeries that day. Once he was done, he wanted to talk it over with the electrophysiologist, who was not on call. I was already dressed, and wandering around the hospital (they have a really good cafeteria with a barista). Nurses kept stopping by asking why I was still there. At least they fed me.
Finally (yes, there is an end to this story), I received approval to be discharged, and my friends came to drive me home. I was exhausted, but most of the pain was gone, and I still had a day or two to cancel the trip. Dumb – I knew I had to cancel but I still had this glimmer of hope that it might be OK to go. The gorilla took care of that indecision. As we were getting close to home, I had that awful feeling of an AFib episode kicking in. By the time we pulled into the driveway, my heart was racing and thumping along. Just what I needed. That was the clincher on the trip. The gorilla won.
I was still relatively functional when I got into the house – my friends stayed for a while to make sure I was OK. When they left, I had a simple dinner, and eventually crashed early. AFib wears you out, and I was already exhausted from the hospital stay.
The Afib episode was still chugging along the next day, but I was able to go ahead with cancelling the trip. That was really difficult, but needed to be done. I was huffing and puffing walking around the house, and still tired from the past few, stressful days. It would have been dangerous and idiotic going on this trip. The episode was the longest so far – 20 hours, so Sunday was pretty much a waste. But at least I was breathing and once the AFib ended, I was feeling OK and could get around the house again without gasping for air.
So, now I’m faced with a couple of weeks of basically nothing to do other than some medical appointments. I do get to watch the election returns though. Ugh. My next trip is scheduled for mid-December, and is much less complex – just a flight to Loretto Mexico, and 6 days on a ship cruising the Sea of Cortez. Hopefully, the gorilla will leave me alone for that trip.
Peace
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