I have been sporting a bit of heart ailment; the cardiologist thought it was time to take action, so off I set to the hospital for a one day procedure. You are awake the whole time; I walked in and jumped up on the table and they started the prep. I actually thought they were going to knock me out so it came as a surprise when the cardiologist walked in and dropped a local anesthetic in my leg, further pressure indicated we had started - I have to say, I was surprised.
It was amazing, you are laying there on you back, wide awake and totally motionless, why would you move? The catheter wire is inside your heart at this time, your nose is itchy and there is no way you are going to take your hands from under the sterile sheet to scratch it, I was not going to move under any circumstances.
Inserting the catheter into the femoral vein took a little pressure, the local anesthetic ensured there was no real pain but you could feel everything going in and as it is pushed around you. You are on edge, you clench repeatedly throughout, he asked me if I wanted some light sedation, I replied no actually hoping for some heavy sedation. Apparently three catheters were inserted, it was difficult to tell exactly what was going on, I really wanted to watch, it is very interesting.
You are on your back listening to everything, I wanted to lift my head up to watch but I never tried. I do know the ablator catheter failed, I heard them grumbling away and they had to get another one. I know they were going to send it back for an exchange, they also had troubles getting good images on the screen as they spent a fair amount of time trying to reset connections, I couldn't see what was going on but your certainly had awareness of the situation.
They were working from 6 large flat screen monitors, there was a team following monitors in the adjoining room, they were calling out to each other, there was another team behind me to my right, I was not sure what they were doing, there was some chatter among them at certain times. Throughout the procedure, the x-ray head was swung across, the lights were dimmed and out of the corner of my eye I could see an orange light on the screen mount light up.
I am amazed at modern medical techniques, I basically arrived at the hospital at 7 am, was second in line so wandered into the catherisation lab from the adjoined recovery room after waiting for the first procedure, it was a gentleman getting the battery replaced on his pacemaker. After inserting the catheter, he injected drugs to crank the heart into arrhythmia a couple of times to map the area; I heard them all go ahhh after a while - I guessed they had then found the spot. Radio-frequency energy is then used to destroy abnormal electrical pathways. I must say, I was concerned they were killing parts of my heart, you ask yourself, what if they zap the wrong area? What then?
After about two hours, it was all done, I actually fell asleep and had to be woken up, it was the second time I had fallen asleep that morning. As I waiting for my procedure, I nodded off, I was awoken by the cardiologist standing alongside the bed informing me it was time to go. Getting woken up by the cardiologist again smiling widely was reassuring, he told me they had been successful as they lifted me onto the recovery bed and wheeled me out.
Fortunately for me, I tried lifting my head up as soon as I was wheeled into recovery, they reacted very quickly, apparently it was going to put pressure on my groin causing bleeding, had to spend three hours of recovery pretty much on my back - boring. At least I didn't try to lift my head while the procedure was underway.
Wandering out of the hospital 3.30 pm the same day is amazing; I was walking with a limp consistent with riding a camel across the desert, no complaints though. Later that night, I was feeling some slight pain in the heart, I guess the result of trauma of sticking a wire into a beating mass of muscle. Heartbeat at this time isn't great either, felt it race away a few times already, let's see how it settles down over the weekend.
I am going to write a letter of recommendation to the management at Royal Perth Hospital, the team was super professional throughout whole the procedure from the time I checked-in to the time I walked out. The Department of Cardiology had plenty of issues throughout the day, an emergency patient was flown in from Leonora requiring immediate treatment and another patient spending over three hours on the table in the other theatre at that stage - you can overhear everything that is going on as the curtains between each bed don't block sound. I didn't see the other patient emerge from theatre by the time my three hour recovery period had lapsed. We all walked in together so I had the opportunity to meet this gentleman, his wife was still waiting patiently outside in the waiting room when I departed. The whole team was very personable despite being busy, I saw some signs posted around the place with points reminding staff to treat people with respect - they certainly exceeded their charter. I wanted to personally thank the staff but was unable to as they were so busy attending to other patients.
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