Showing posts with label ablation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ablation. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Visitor

Sedation is good.


Sedation is a wonderful thing. I’m all for it. I was sedated a few times during the course of my heart operation last week as opposed to being given a general anesthetic. I slept through most of it though I did awake to experience a few of the highlights. The effects stuck around a while so when I experienced the following guest at my bedside in the recovery room I simply accepted it with little critical thought.

Within an hour of being wheeled back to recovery a woman came to see me. Middle-aged, roundish of build, brown hair and I think brown eyes, wore glasses, and had on a surgical mask. She told me the mask was because she was cleaning beds after patients left and was allergic to the cleaning products. She sat down on the left side of the bed, where there was no chair, and looked at what I presume was my chart.

"I'm March, you're November.* Girlfriend, WHAT are you DOING here?"
So I explained.

We had some more conversation that really doesn't stick with me.
Then she stood up to leave: "Next time, we'll meet on the street. Or in a bar."
I said, "Okay. We'll meet on the street and go to a bar."

She laughed and turned to leave, walked to the curtain (my curtains were drawn for privacy) turned around and blew me a kiss.
I think she preceded it with " Until next time" or "Until we meet again."
Then I went to sleep.

It felt like the X-Files episode “One Breath” where Scully is in the hospital and gets visited by an angel in the form of Nurse G. Owens.
My special visitor looked somewhat like Nicola Cavendish, the actress who played said nurse.

If it was an hallucination, then it was more detailed than any of the regular hallucinations I get from the beta blockers I take. Those come in the night and involved being covered up, which panics me, assorted shapes in the room, and my clock radio not looking right. On one stellar occasion the clock offered me a scrolling newsfeed rather than the time.

Someone cleaning the beds had no reason to come visit me. I was within 10 feet of a fully-staffed nurse's station and I wonder why someone would take that chance. If it was a staffer, then it was a weird-ass psycho lovebitch and I am creeped out beyond all measure.

I am sure it was an angel. A spirit being would know to come to me in a recognizable form, and one that I would accept.
Appearing as a cherub or with wings and a halo would scare me or make me laugh.

It felt beyond this worldish. I am sure it was a member of the angelic realm and I am tickled silly about my special visitor.


*reference is to birthdays

Monday, April 27, 2009

Gratitude Monday - In a Heartbeat

One of the bluebirds found on the Kootenay Plains.


It’s a great day.
It’s Monday, the start of a fresh week “with no mistakes in it” if you’ll let me quote Anne Shirley. (Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery. Anne was talking about a day, but I’m stupidoptimstic and will go with week).
I’m grateful for many things already and now I get to add a new one. On May 14 I’m going in for some outpatient heart surgery at the U of A.
It’s called catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation.
I got the call on Friday that it was set up. It’ll take all day and I have to stay in Edmonton that night in case I have to get back to the hospital for any reason.
I’ve decided I won’t have to, but I’ll stay handy to it anyway.
Prior to the surgery I need to have a cardioversion done again. It’s where the heart is stopped ever so briefly and then restarted. It’s done to restore proper sinus rhythm.
Once that’s done I get to stop taking the second beta blocker I was put on recently.
It’s all good and it’s just going to keep getting better.
**
The bluebird in the picture is, of course, the bluebird of happiness.
Have a great week, everyone.
I’m going to.