Michael has a broken heart.
Maybe malfunctioning is a better word. He has (well, had) supraventricular tachycardia. We thought he'd been having anxiety attacks for years, but it turns out it was something a little more serious. The kind of serious that earns one a cardiac procedure requiring a drive to a hospital in the wee hours of the morn (scheduled, not emergency).
Let's back up a little bit. This all started in 4th grade. It was a stressful time. He has ADHD and what he was describing sounded to us and the pediatrician like an anxiety attack. We got him officially diagnosed with ADHD and tried to teach him about some calming exercises. Fast forward a few years. One evening as Michael was chilling on his bed texting his girlfriend he had an episode at home. Now that Jason and I finally were around during an episode we were alarmed by how fast his heart was racing (over 200 beats per minute) and that Michael reported starting to blackout. The pediatrician was also alarmed. He got upgraded to a pediatric cardiologist who put a cardiac monitor on him for a month - and that is about as fun as it sounds. Michael failed that test.
Then Michael got upgraded to a cardiac surgeon. And an appointment for a procedure that is about 7 words long and ends with "ablation".
This procedure is crazy effective with no side effects but it was an all-day affair. Michael and I were up early and discovered that it possible to find a parking spot in Tacoma if you get there before the people wake up. He started the day in pretty good spirits.
The staff at Mary Bridge are amazing. Seriously. They were great. And Michael had his phone on him so he passed the early morning hours happily taking selfies.
The only part he did not enjoy was when they put the catheter in. But still, things were going pretty well.
And then he was gone for about 6 hours. Thankfully, the surgeon gave me an estimate of 4-6 hours because otherwise that is a crazy bit of time.
Things definitely got more exciting when he came back to the room. He was very amusing. The highlights:
- I went to the side of his bed and held his hand when they first brought him back into the room. He was pretty drugged and asked, "Mariya?" (his girlfriend's name) When I told him it was mom, he let go of my hand and said, "lame!"
- He kept telling me that he felt the same - when were they going to do the procedure?
- He asked several times where his pants and underwear were (the surgeon went in though Michael's femoral arteries so the pants came off before the surgery but after the anesthesia).
- For a while he would purse his lips and blow out air forcefully. When I asked him about it, he told me he was blowing out the anesthesia and that the anesthesia wasn't going to "beat him".
- He begged me to take videos of him so he could post them on Instagram later.
All in all, it is safe to say that 7 anesthetic medications can make you pretty loopy. And hilarious. And I do have some of that recorded.
After the regularly scheduled excitement of the day, the nurses got ready to discharge Michael from the hospital. This is when the unscheduled excitement started which I do not recommend. 0 stars. Two thumbs down. As he stood up to put his pants on, the insertion point on one of his legs "farted" and he started bleeding. A lot.
This is definitely how to get a party going on in your recovery room at the hospital. The number of nurses increased significantly. Back on the bed he went with a dedicated nurse putting pressure on his leg for 10 minutes while simultaneously assuring me that things were fine and asking another nurse to call the doctor.
Since nurses don't generally call surgeons who have already left the hospital for the day when things are fine, I assumed that perhaps we had differing definitions of the the word "fine". In the end, since it was a vein not an artery and the bleeding did eventually stop, we were sent home with bleeding supplies and assurances that he wouldn't bleed again...most likely.
After an exhausting day, we arrived home with no more excitement. But there was a friend waiting for Michael from Aunt Rachel.
Surgeon said everything went well really and though Michael's insides are more complicated than most he should be good to go!
