Three weeks ago I was panicking about the ablation-walking around the house, wondering if I should make a will, and looking at the kitchen (which still needs cleaning) and thinking that if I croaked, the kitchen is a total mess. Nervous? Apprehensive? WTF-someone I don't know, in a place that's unfamiliar, is going to poke around my heart and burn some tissue-and what if the person is a junior doctor and has no idea what he's doing? Nerves? What nerves?
Well. Two weeks ago today I was at the hospital, where I had to wait seven hours for the operation. Seven hours! I probably could have walked home-and trust me, I was so tempted! But when I got there, I wasn't sure how long I was going to be waiting. As it turns out-and they told me seven hours later!!-they didn't have a bed for me, and they wanted to keep me overnight, so I had to wait. And sweat.
I went outside after I checked in, because they hospital was in chaos: building works. So I walked up the road, and I could have sworn I saw barbed wire. Turns out that it was barbed wire. A notorious men's prison is just up the road. And later, when I sat in reception and was talking with some other patients who were waiting for various procedures, one told me that where Wormwood Scrubs ends, the other side of the wall belongs to Hammersmith Hospital. Of course, I had to comment, didn't I? I said that was wonderful, because if a prisoner got stabbed or sick, all they had to do was bring him to the wall and throw him over. No need for an ambulance.
The man who was standing there, laughing because he clearly thought that was funny, turned out to be one of the two consultants who performed the surgery. Now that was funny...
I'm not going to give you all the gory details of the surgery, and my stay, and how excruciating the whole three hour procedure was (I wasn't allowed to go to sleep, they needed me to tell them when I was in pain-which was all the time), but I will say how relieved I was when they wheeled me into a ward at about 8pm.I wasn't allowed to move for a few hours, but I wasn't bothered about that. They told me that I needed to rest and not do anything strenuous for the next two weeks (no housework. Yippee!!), and I could start walking a little after a week or so. They also said that I will know for certain in three months if the procedure was successful, since it takes that long for the heart to heal.
These two weeks have been very difficult. I have done too much walking, but I haven't been doing a lot of bending, lifting, or doing anything strenuous (I asked them to define strenuous. They just looked at me and shook their heads. Duh...)
So I'm most definitely back. I was told that I would be extremely tired for a few weeks, and that was definitely true. But when I got back, I emailed everyone and told them that I hopefully will not have any more attacks of tachycardia, because the extra pathway in my heart is now sealed. And I jokes that if there's a Hell, nobody was interested. And if there's a Heaven, nobody is interested there, either.
I'm going to be around for awhile-at least, I hope so. We never know for sure, do we? I just hope that I hang around long enough-and healthy enough-to be a pain in the ass to as many people I know as possible. Now that is what I call an achievement!
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