I'm going to the hospital in the morning to get a procedure done to cure my Atrial Fibrillation.
About a 4 hour operation, but I will get to sleep through the whole thing. The doctor says that he will have as many as 5 catheters in my heart at any one time. All through the leg veins. Sounds crowded to me.
He will cauterize the areas that are producing the errant nervous impulses that cause the Fib.
I sure hope it works. If so, I will be home Thurs.
I am not looking forward to this. Frankly I'm scared. When I think of someone poking a bunch of pipes and a microwave oven into my thumping gizzard I get nervous.
God willing, I will be back reading The Hide Thursday...

you will be in my prayers tonight.

Mine too Brother.

Kinsman I am sure you will be fine it just sounds freaking scarey. You will be back in a few days telling us all how well it went and that your glad you did it.
Get better soon bud and see you back on the hide Thursday.

Mac

I'll add you to my prayer list tonight brother... I'll be looking for a post here from you on Thursday.

Had a friend that was pretty sick from that fibrillation thing. The surgery cleared it right up. Hope it works for you as well as it did for him. Prayers sent.

Those cardiac electricians are something else these days - its amazing what they can do and how they map those pathways out. I got a gut feeling you will be fine. Prayers sent for a restful night sleep, quick recovery, and sinus rhythm.

Good LUCK BROTHA!!!! we are all thinking about you. you will do just fine.
Look forward to your good health.

God bless

I'll keep my fingers crossed that it goes well for you. They attempted to ablate mine back in 2002 without success. I was awake the entire time while they tortured me for four hours. I was strapped down to a table, butt ass naked with about 20 people in the room. They shot me up with all kinds of crap which would make me feel ice cold one minute, burning hot the next, adrenaline and electrical shocks attempting to trigger the A Fib so they could map it. No dice. Worst experience of my life but it was experimental at the time and I'm sure they've made a lot of progress since then.

Good luck to you. I would like to have mine taken care of as it only seems to pop up when it is really, really inconvenient. It cut my fishing trip to Ontario short this year by two days

Prayers inbound......good luck...gods speed.

My wife had the exact same thing last Tuesday the 27th. The doctor called it an "ablation" (?) She spent one night in a room and came home the next day. She's been slow on her feet. And she can't do too well on steps or stairs.

Isn't life today wonderful. When my Dad passed in 1972 there wasn't even an ambulance service. You called the local funeral home and they sent a driver and a hearse.

I'll say a prayer for you shortly.

Had it done in '03.... Similar experience to Phylodog (kept awake, no anesthesia) but mine worked, haven't had an issue since. It's an uncomfortable experience to say the least, but if you can sleep through it thats a home run. Best wishes to a speedy recovery.

You are in my prayers. I hope everything comes out OK.

I hope all goes well for you.

Praying.

I had the same heart ablasion proceedure about ten years ago and haven't had any episodes of rapid heart beat since.
Just take it easy for a few days; you'll be fine.

Thanks, Guys. I appreciate your good words and especially your prayers.
Well, I'm off to see the wizard.....

god speed brother

God bless. Best wishes and prayers sent.

Good Luck and God Speed on the recovery . I will ad you to my prayer list until further notice .

IS that open heart or are they doing it orthoscopically?

You'll be recovering in no time!!

Scott,

They make a series of incisions in the groin area just above the bend of the hip joint. My wife had 2 incisions on each side. They snake the orthoscopic instruments through the major blood vessels to the heart. She said she could see the surgeon sitting at a computer console on the side or the room. So I'm not sure how much of her procedure MAY be robotic. It's a more complicated and intense version of a heart cath. In the hospital 1 to 4 days.

While the patient will feel like crap for a few days. In less than 2 weeks they will be back to 80% functionality. In open chest procedures like the one I had in 1996 you'll be in the hospital 2 to 4 weeks and it'll take 3 to 5 months to get back to 80%.

The insurance companies LOVE the newer procedures.

It is done by catheter ablation to destroy foci that cause abnormal rhythms. There is visualizaion on fluroscopy not direct visualization like a joint in "arthroscopy". Electrical curents burn the bad stuff in the heart during an electrophysiological monitoring.
Should be a pieceof cake for all.

I believe you guys are talking about a laparoscopy, where an instrument is inserted into a small incision, which supports both direct vision and surgical manipulation. It is typically used for abdominal procedures, because it's use is enabled/enhanced by inflating the abdomen with gas. This inflation cannot be done within the pleural cavity, as it results in collapsed lungs.

Victor - you were in the hospital that long?

My daughter had open heart in 1998, age 2 - she was out in 4 days....

TOok a bit to heal but at her age she healed faster than most adults ever do..

Sorry Greg (U R best at life's philosophy and Gun advice) But:
One can do Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS) It is used for spine approaches there and for other intrathoracic procedures. The Anesthesiologist deliberately collapses the lung until that part of the surgical procedure is over. Then at the end the lung is reinflated. He uses a special two lumen endotracheal tube.
This surgery is much less painful than rib breaking formal Thoracotomy.

Greg, you continue to amaze me with what you're over-educated in...even though it sounds like your info base just got expanded again with ArcticLight's post above.

Heck, his knowledge base amazes me, too.

Great site, eh?

Best wishes that you'll be waking up soon, feeling as good as possible after such a minorly major procedure.

My boss (first job out of undergraduate) had a heart valve replacement in 1988. I never knew before then that a 97% success rate could make a 3% risk of [ ] look so huge! I really hear you on the scared part, and my nearest brush with it wasn't even ME!

I'm also grateful for all who are joining us in prayers for Kinsman. Let's hope we hear from him soon. Anyone near his 10-20?

You guys that have had heart repair - make a note -

Friend of mine had it, a year later twisted his knee and it got infected easily enough, got into the blood, right to the heart and into a coma.

he had a 15-40% chance of surviving and he did but he sure looks older now....

Just take care not to get infections, have to put my daughter on anti-biotics if she ever goes for outpatient type surgery, root canal or anything like that..

Victor
I am sure that was a while ago when you had your procedure. Now a day, unless you have issues after the procedure, your insurance company won't let you stay in that long. Usually a few days at most. They need to maximize their profit at the patients' expense...

This procedure was first started back in the mid 1990's. They were also experimenting with doing coronary artery bypass grafts with this method as well.

Maybe I mis-spoke. When they cracked my chest in 1996 they took the bottom lobe of my right lung. The incision started a couple of inches to the rear of my right nipple but lower, and extends to my mid back. I don't remember the exact number. But it was well over 120 staples.

I'm not sure for which problem. But any time I have anything done, even going to the dentist for a cleaning, I have to premed with an antibiotic.

The heart caths I've had have all been as soon as everything was OK they ejected me like a hot potatoe. When they implanted the loop monitor I have I stayed either 3 or 4 days. But part of that was the doctor's fault for leaving town. I don't see him anymore.

My staging laparotomies were done in 1992 and 1996, my (quadruple) coronary artery bypass graft(s) was(/were) performed Christmas Day 2004.

Well, I'm back home, as of about 1900 hrs last night.
The doctor said that all went quite well, and expects 100% success.
I was disappointed that I did not sleep through it all. I woke up at the start of the procedure when he made the first burn. Hurt like blazes. Phylodog, I know a little of what you went through. I would have been a screaming maniac if I had to go through what you did. They put me back under for the rest of the procedure, and all was well.
The doc made 80 burns total, finding "hot spots" and burning them out.
I still have a few flutters, but this is supposed to go away as scar tissue forms.
About two weeks and I should be back to my old 60 grit self.

Thanks again for your kind thoughts and prayers.

David

GREAT !!!

That's good news. I hope you have a speedy recovery.

Kinsman U made it
Best wishes for an uneventful recovery

Glad everything went well.
I wanted to stay awake for my bypass surgery, but they wouldn't let me.
100, 99, 98, 9.....7......ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
I can see why Michael Jackson liked that stuff so much.

Halloween 2005.
It was also the surgeon's birthday.
Surgery Monday AM and back home Thursday AM.

Congrats David, glad to hear it was a success. I may revisit the idea one of these days.

Good to hear it went ok. Hope Yer up and at em soon.

Take.

It.

Easy.

Your condition needs to stabilize for quite awhile.

Greg

Greg,
You bet I'm taking it easy. My Dr. lied to me. Before the operation, I asked him how long it would be before I could resume normal activities. He knows that I am a pretty active senior. He said it would be "Oh, 2 or 3 days." Now I find that I can't lift more than 10 lbs., and it will take 6 weeks to 2 months for full healing.
Ten pounds? My Savage 300 WM weighs 14 lbs, and it is very embarrassing that I have to squat to pee.....