Rebooting My Heart - My Cardioversion at the Sutter Medical Center Emergency Room - Early Hours of January 30, 2022

About 8 p.m. on Saturday January 29, 2022, I lay down on my couch to nap, and immediately thought, "Is there an earthquake going on?" Because something sure was rocking. But the earth seemed stable. My heart was doing the rocking. 

I forgot about the rocking. Later on in the evening, Rachel came over, and she was able to detect the pounding in my chest. Since I'm taking medications for atrial fibrillation (afib), I used a pulse oximeter to measure my pulse rate, which logged in between 155 and 158 beats per minute. Way high! My heart must be quivering like an aspen leaf in the wind. Yet, I felt perfectly fine - no dizziness or discomfort of any sort. 

What to do? I took an extra metoprolol tablet to slow the heart down. More medical advice might be helpful. I called Blue Shield's Teladoc. After a pre-call getting insurance info, a doctor called back. He was absolutely emphatic that I must get to the emergency room as rapidly as possible. No wiggle room on his advice! 

So, Rachel took me to the Sutter Medical Center Emergency Room about 1 a.m. Given Covid, and all, I was apprehensive about how long it might take to get into the ER, but I was surprised how quick it was. When I presented them with cardiac symptoms, they opened the ER doors immediately. One of the nurses bowed slightly. He said, "Please, come in!" 

So, no matter how jolly I felt, my heart beat was too high. The EKG made clear that the metoprolol tablet had been utterly ineffective. The heart had flown away into the infinite and was beating as hard as it could. There were two options: 1.) more drugs - no guarantee of success, or 2.) cardioversion - using a powerful electric shock to reboot my heart into a proper rhythm. 

Cardioversion seemed the way to go. So, around 2:15 a.m., various nurses, enablers, a sober-looking respiratory therapist, and the ER doctor started gathering around. Maybe ten people in the room, total. They prepared the propofol (that drug that done Michael Jackson in) for injection. (Apparently you really jump when slammed with that much electricity, so they wanted to put me under first.) It almost seemed like a party atmosphere had evolved. I said after the jolt I wanted to walk around like Frankenstein, and have them say in mock horror "He's alive!" I emphasized Frankenstein. I said Michael Jackson was more of a werewolf kind of guy, and didn't want to follow his lead. They wanted to humor me, so they chuckled. 

They glued metal sheets to my front and back. Not sure which plate was cathode and which was anode. The doctor said I'd feel the propofol burn as it entered my arm, and I did. After about a minute, I noticed a kind of fatigue, which lasted about 30 seconds. Then I was out. 

When I awoke most everyone had gone. My heart was beating more normally - still jumping a beat now and then. I was unable to sleep, due to texting people, posting on Facebook, and a ceaseless blood-pressure measuring device kneading my arm. After a couple hours of observation they informed me at 5 a.m. that, even though tropamine levels remained elevated, they ascribed that due to the electric shock, not due to a heart attack. Part of it too might be the hours of pounding.  It was as if I'd been in a marathon race.

So, I could go. Rachel was kind enough to pick me up from the ER around 6 a.m. 

Since the underlying afib problem remains, I might have to have this done more times in the future. Sometimes a reboot is all you can do. There is ablation surgery, which they decided against in 2018, that might cure the problem, but we'll see. 

I felt kind of tired on Sunday, but I had had virtually no sleep, so that was understandable. I have a video call with my cardiologist - the busiest man in Sacramento - this Thursday, Feb. 3rd.

Here I am, post-shock, displaying improved numbers.