An Uncertain Future

Health Concerns - Heart

My heart problems have worsened over the past few months.  I saw my Cardiologist's registrar in June because the SVT's en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supraven… had become more frequent and more distressing, causing me on several occasions to have to give up and come home when I was in the middle of playing my flute in public situations, or doing other things that required someone else to take over behind the scenes.  Obviously I had become rather unreliable.  The symptoms include breathlessness and lots of other things, but the pacemaker I have has enabled me not to actually collapse.  She put me on a regime of certain tablets to try and prevent this happening, but unfortunately I was unable to tolerate them.  After phoning her secretary, she got back to me and put me on an alternative regime, which I started the following day.  My GP baulked at the suggested regime in her letter, which he had received by fax a couple of days later, but conceded she must know what she's doing as this was her speciality, and the normally expected heart-block that would happen would be prevented by my pacemaker implant.  I started this new regime immediately and for the first week it seemed to be working well.  Then I started getting constant very fast heart-beats, which although not giving me awful symptoms other than getting very tired, I could detect in a silent room when I could hear my own pulse in my head.  As I was due a pacemaker check, I waited, meanwhile carrying on with the medication hoping it would right itself.  The pace check revealed the problem - atrial flutter - showing it to have gone on for 20 days at that time.

Then I had a terrifying experience in the middle of the night, when I had obviously been dreaming that something was happening, and on waking, I was saying out loud, "I don't know which button I'm supposed to press!  I don't know what to do!"  I had my hand just above the area of my pacemaker and was obviously trying to press something that wasn't there, but the fact was my heart was beating terribly fast and terribly irregularly, and I literally felt as though I was going to die.  It sorted itself out back to the fast but even rhythm shortly after, but I then had the shock reaction of uncontrollably shivering and shaking with teeth chattering, and this lasted for a whole hour.  I was then too frightened to go back to sleep for quite a long time afterwards.

I saw my GP the next day (after being on this medication regime for 35 days).  His reaction was that I should come off it and revert back to normal medication as soon as possible.  Blood tests and an ECG have been done; the former are all normal (thank goodness!!) but the ECG revealed that I now have atrial flutter and atrial fibrillation - the one thing that we were all hoping to avoid!  I see the Cardiologist's Specialist Intervention Fellow on 15th September.  The original plan was to go for an AV ablation (knocking out all electrical impulses inside the heart) and to rely solely on the pacemaker.  However, atrial fibrillation is the one thing these ablations fail to correct!

I feel short-changed, rather angry that this was allowed to happen - particularly at this stage - and on the verge of plummeting into depression, as I've really, really had enough of all this!

Because of now being at high risk of heart attack and/or stroke, I've now been put on anti-coagulants.  Anyone on these will know the long list of risks and unwanted side-effects and one wonders why anyone would actually go ahead and take the darn things!  I feel like making a comic reading of those side effects on Youtube - no kidding!!!

So...  In case I should suddenly disappear from here - or anywhere else for that matter - I have now re-arranged the Admin roles in my own groups so that I'm no longer the founder (at least for the time being), as I just hate to see groups go to the wall because their founder is no longer active.

Left Shoulder Degenerative Changes

This is my second problem!  This started to become excruciatingly painful around two months ago and in the end I was taking oral morphine (only when needed most) to try to cope with the pain levels, particularly when getting up, washed and dressed in the mornings.  For a time I couldn't type much because of the pain if I held my arm up so that my fingers could function on the keyboard.  I haven't been able to play my flute, as that is right on the pain barrier too.

I had an x-ray last week after a cortisone injection failed to help, and yes, this has revealed thinning of the collar bone towards the area where it joins with the top of the scapula, at which point there are signs of degeneration affecting the shoulder joints.  Hence the pain.  Good news is that, although playing the flute is still painful (unless I have my elbow resting on something), there are signs of improvement, both in movement and with less pain (unless I go too far).