The latest on Chris

2 weeks ago Chris and I headed up to the hospital for Chris' Cardioversion procedure. They took him back to the waiting area for outpatient procedures and got his IV started, took blood and got the heart monitors on him before calling me back to sit with him. We were there chatting with the nurse for about an hour before the cardiologist got there. His doctor asked me if I wanted to stay to watch it. Sure. I like medical stuff and I have watched my fair share. I watched my moms laser eye surgery on a close up TV screen while she was having it done. I thought it was really cool when they cut the eye ball and pulled the lens back to access the cornea. This would be no biggie.

They put the pads on him. One on his chest and one on his back. They administered the sedatives through his IV to put him to sleep. They charge up the machine. The machine has a warning saying that his pads are not reading properly. They cant figure out why. The machine was reading his EKG information so they knew it was working. He charged it up again and said "Clear!" and pushed the button and nothing happened. Then they realized the wires were not connected to the pads that do the actual shock. I said "You guys are not making feel very good about this!". They get him plugged in and the doctor charges the machine back up and says "Clear!" and just like you see in the movies, Chris' whole upper body lifts up from the gurney. He opens his eyes and looks around. The doctor tells me that it didn't work. He would have to shock him a second time. Chris was still looking around so they gave him another small dose of drugs. I told them I had to leave. I could not watch that again.

I went out to the waiting room and started to worry when a lot of time passed. The doctor finally came out and said that the second shock did work but now he was concerned because his heart rate was in the 30s at rest. 40s when he asked him to get up and move around a little bit. He felt there was some sort of congenital problem and that the top and bottom chambers were not "talking to each other" properly. He still felt ok with Chris going home that day. Said there was nothing urgent that was of concern but that we would talk about him at the followup appointment the following week. He said he expected that Chris would get dizzy easily and that he would not be surprised if he passed out. It was a Friday so he gave me his cell phone number to contact him if we had any problems or questions over the weekend.

I went back to see Chris. I didn't tell him too much at the time because I did not want to give him more to worry about. We were able to leave fairly soon after. We came home and he took a nice long nap. He felt pretty good the next day other than some soreness in his chest. I could hear the difference in his heart beat when I put my ear to his chest. I have become a novice in distinguishing the different states of his heart beats. The following Monday he had to go in to have his blood levels checked and they checked his pulse and said he was irregular again. Not what we expected, or wanted, to hear! I listened to his heart that night and it did sound a little irregular, but not the same as it did post stroke when he was in Atrial Fibrillation. We had a followup appointment with the cardiologist on Wednesday and he said that Chris was back in A Fib. Atrial Flutter to be exact. He said he uses the terms interchangeably but that the A Flutter was a much more organized rhythm than it had before. Last Thursday at work Chris felt his heart beat pretty hard and he got slightly dizzy. When we got home I listened to it and low and behold, it had converted itself back into a regular rhythm. Today, it converted back. It is a very nerve racking state of unknown right now.

At the last appointment with the cardiologist we talked about options from this point on and when we have more information on how he is going to proceed, we will discuss them with everyone.

Thank you to everyone for your continued thoughts and prayers!