AFib in April

On Tuesday, April 15 Matt was feeling awful, lots of painful breathing, couldn't sleep, so he took himself from work to the ER at Banner Gateway.  I was so glad he went in because he'd been feeling terrible for several days.  They found out he had an irregular heart rate called atrial fibrillation (AFib) and a very high heart rate.  It was causing his heart to work way too hard and causing heart damage, and also retaining fluid around his lungs (hence the painful breathing.)  They tried to bring it down with medication all day and kept him overnight to watch him.  The monitors kept going off constantly.  I came by in the morning and the cardio nurse practitioner said that since the medication wasn't working, they would do an ultrasound of Matt's heart with a scope to check for clots, and if it looked okay, they would do a cardio version (shock him with paddles). This sometimes helps reset the heart's rhythm and get it out of AFib, so it stops causing heart damage.  It was all so sudden and so scary.  I think I have some extra anxiety about it because 3 men in our church ward/neighborhood who were only in their 50s died this last year very suddenly.   It has been so hard to watch each of their families go through such a sudden loss.  

I brought the kids by Wednesday afternoon to see Matt after he got admitted to a room, so they could see Matt before he got the cardio version Thursday morning.

Of course, the day Matt went to the hospital, I was driving Charlotte and Miles after school right before the 4 piano lessons on Tuesday afternoon, and I heard a clunking noise in my wheel well on Brown right before I turned right onto Stapley.  I pulled into that neighborhood, and Charlotte hopped out to watch and see if she could see anything.  It looks like a fencing wire.  It was such a tender mercy from God, 1 minute after we pulled up, a nice man pulled into his driveway right across the street and immediately came over with wire cutters to snip the wire so I could get home.  When we tried to pull it out, we could hear the air leaving the tire, so he thought clipping it and going to a tire shop would be best.  I drove the kids' car the rest of the evening and the next morning.  Then I  brought the tire in to be repaired. I'm grateful for kind people who show up and offer to help exactly when you need them.  Such a blessing!

Hugs from Abby

Thursday morning, after I got the kids to school and went to the hospital to be with Matt while they prepped him for the cardio version.  I was a wreck.  I'm normally not much of a worrier, but something wrong with your heart sounds so scary, especially after losing those 3 men in our ward.  I kept crying off and on, I was so worried something would go wrong and we would lose Matt way too soon. They let me stay with him right until they put him under and did the scope.  I waited in a waiting room for maybe 15-20 minutes, then the Dr came out and said he had to shock Matt twice, but he was out of afib now.  He said he heart was pretty damaged but hopefully he could heal now that he was out of afib.  The high heart rate came down immediately so the cardio verson worked!

The paddles left a mark

They kept Matt overnight and then discharged him Friday afternoon.  The kids were off for Good Friday, but I went to be with Matt most of the day and drive his truck home.  Charlotte dropped me off at the hospital so we wouldn't have two cars.  It's nice to have an extra driver now.  We were so happy to have him home after 4 days in the hospital.

On Saturday, we went to Costco to look for low-sodium foods.  It was probably too much exercise to walk around for an hour.  We came home and took a nap.  Then that evening we found one salad that didn't have too much sodium in the dressing we could have at Mad Greens so we went there for date night and got Matt a watch to track his heart at Best Buy.

I love our shadows, and date night, definitely appreciate all the little things after being so scared having him in the hospital for four days.

When we got home, he put on his new watch, and it immediately said he was in AFib again with a high heart rate.  We were so so sad.  The Dr office said to bring him to the ER to get it checked out.  Luckily, we were only there a few hours Saturday night and the medication brought the heart rate down this time.

So for the last 2 months he's been in AFib and on 6 different medications to help prevent stroke, help with high blood pressure and high heart rate, and one to hopefully get him out of AFib.  So far it hasn't worked so they will probably try another cardio version in July, and hopefully with the medication it will stick better this time.  He's been pretty tired dealing with the heart failure and Afib.  For about a month, he just worked from home and would lay down to rest when he needed to, I didn't let him drive at all for a couple weeks.  He started going back to his work hub office.  It's been a big life adjustment with food and how tired he is but we're doing our best to figure it out.  We haven't been sleeping very well.  At first, I could wake up just to make sure he was okay and breathing okay, like a newborn with SIDS.  Then he's had some painful side effects that make it hard to sleep.  I've been trying to help by making all his food so it's all low-sodium and so he doesn't have to worry about it as much.  We've adapted some chili, taco soup, grilled chicken, lots of fish, and a really good stir fry, all with almost no salt.  

It's been hard for him to not do much.  Once in a while I catch him trying to do yard work.  We are so glad he went in when he did and didn't get a stroke but we wish we would have gone in sooner to deal with some of the risk factors like high blood pressure.  It's been a big, not-fun adjustment but we are doing our best to help his heart get through this and all the side-effects.