Heart Bypass Surgery

Well, I was cruisin' along as I have perhaps a little smugly told you, and tapered off the month's supply of beta-blocker given me when I exited the hospital -- which may or may not be relevant -- but thursday evening I noticed a funny, fluttery feeling in my heart rhythm and a general feeling of malaise and fatigue. When it was still there in the morning we went to the local urgent-care center and they quickly diagnosed an atrial flutter. No problem with the new valve, thank goodness -- I was scaring myself with thoughts of valve breakdown and re-operation -- but a quick check with a stethoscope showed the valve was operating fine. It turns out that atrial fibrillation or flutter (slightly different versions of the same basic problem) are very common complications of open-heart surgery. Aside from making the heart inefficient, leading to you feeling weak and sick, the only real danger is that if the arrhythmia goes on for 48 hours or more, clots can start forming. The fix, called "cardioversion," is relatively easy, although I had to go back to the hospital for the day to receive it. They sedated me for 5 minutes and while I was out, jolted my heart with an electric shock. Then an hour to get properly awake again and get the IV taken out and my clothes back on and get a new prescription for Lopressor, and off for home again and 10 hours sleep. The only real complication to this complication was that my wife has also been having her own health problems and neither of us were in shape for the drive to the hospital. Fortunately we have relatives to call on, and our brother-in-law was able to spend the day chauffering us around. He had a big sack of magazines he'd been meaning to catch up on, and he got plenty of time in the hospital lobby to do that... Dave Cortesi