After I recovered from shoulder surgery last August, I started running again when cleared for it. I started noticing dizziness and shortness of breath, figured I was more out of shape than expected. It got worse, gradually, almost imperceptibly, until I decided to have it checked. Now, I avoid doctors as a rule, and I had never stayed over night in a hospital, had two outpatient surgeries, was on no medication, which is not bad for mid-60s.
My primary care doc had an EKG run in the office, and fortunately I had one run in July for my preop physical, which was entirely normal. This one was not. It showed a lot of noise where there had been a flat baseline between pulses. Atrial flutter, it's called, something wrong with my electrical system.
He says sit right here, call your wife to take you to the ER up the road two miles and Piedmont Hospital, so we do that. He kept coming by to check on me telling me "It's probably minor." which made me nervous, which caused my flutter to worsen. Anyone, the run another EKG in the ER, and a cardiosonigraph, and draw blood and measure this and that (all showing up on my phone). Bunches of doctors come by and talk, one side does "plumbing" and the other group are 'electricians". They decide I'm OK to leave and the nurse takes out my IV and gets me ready for transport when word comes they want me to RON for observation, the sonigraph showed an "anomaly". So, another IV, and then yet another one later. I was in the ER between 11 AM and about 7 PM when they finally got me a room upstairs. They said the ER was slammed that day more than it had been in five years, they did not know why, COVID is pretty low here. Some folks who checked in near me just said their legs hurt or they were swollen, something pretty nondescript.
Everyone is truly nice to me, which helped. So, I slept on a bed that would be OK for someone 5'11", I'm 6'4".
The next day they tell me I can't eat, they want to do a CT-CV, which is a cardiocatscan. This is fairly involved, something like an MRI but it uses radiation, and as they wanted me to hold my breath, they said my heart was acting up each time I was to hold my breath. Anyone, we finally get it done after some consultations. The good news is my heart was "normal", a bit of buildup they said was minor, aside from the arrythmia. The electrical cardiologist tells me he still wants to wait a month, no sign of clots, which was the concern, but he'd rather not chance it, a clot that goes to my brain would be bad. So, I finally get released about an hour ago, the wife is going to the pharmacy now to get some DRUGS.
I'm not all that limited for the month, he said no running, but walking is fine, and one glass of wine is fine. As noted on the other thread, this surgical procedure has a very high success rate, catheter ablation, the severe a nerve in my atrial heart muscle going in through the femoral, out patient, home that evening, etc. The good news is the heart is thoroughly checked out, the cure for my problem is pretty simple, I have good insurance, no telling how much all this costs. The amount of waste a hospital generates is truly amazing. And you have these highly paid folks bopping around.
I'm on Medicare and have supplemental from my company. I was surprised how nice everyone was, they would joke about some, it made it nicer to be poked and prodded all the time. I was a monitor on me 24/7 sending signals to the nurses desk. They said they could tell when I got up to go to the bathroom. The unusual thing is my pulse rate was 60-70 and bp was running around 107-60. Anyway, I'm a bit less scared of our medical system now. I'll probably need them more as I age. Duh.
If something doesn't feel normal, think about getting it checked out.
