Post Ablation Day 1

I finally got to see Sam around 11:30pm with his mom. He was still very groggy and in a lot of pain. He said this ablation was more painful than the one in May. He had a great night nurse - Ramone who was in his room constantly to check his blood levels at this groin site. Once it dropped below 200 he was going to remove the tubes and apply a 10lb sandbag to clot the site.  I left the hospital in the early morning hours and came home to get some rest and his mom stayed with him. At around 6am he was able to get up and walk around and try and put some pressure on his groin. However, soon after walking around in his room he started to bleed and was sent back to bed for another 4+ hours.

[The sandbag that had to lay on Sam's groin to clot the blood at the site]

Dr. Wong came in to see Sam around 1:30p today and wanted to explain to him everything that he was able to do during yesterday's procedure. He drew on Sam's patient board and explained how he went in and worked on his heart. Looking at the photo below - the atrium with the arrows is the right side of his heart. This is the side that they fixed back in May and is still blocked and after testing isn't showing any signs of active signals. The side with the dots is his left side and that is the one where Dr. Wong spent 6 hours ablating. The total number of ablations done in Sam's heart was between 300-400!

[Dr. Wong's drawing to Sam as he explained to him what he did inside of his heart]

Dr. Wong was able to use a new devise that is able to chart while he is catheterizing. It shows him how effective the ablation is and measures the tissue to see if it was destroyed enough to build a block in his heart. This is something that wasn't available back in May for his procedure. The Dr was confident he ablated all of the triggers on the left side of his heart. On the right side everything was gone for good BUT he did see some Atrial Flutter after inducing his heart back into an arrhythmia and it came from the right side. However, it was mysterious and he couldn't find the source... with the left side being fully ablated there are no triggers to feed off of the flutter should it come back. 

Next Steps:

We have a follow-up appointment with Dr. Wong in January. At that time he will be taken off of all of his arrhythmia medications and placed on a 30 day heart monitor. If there are no issues seen on the heart monitor he will discontinue the medications for good. If for some reason there are still issues within his heart we will re-evaluate at that time. 

We agreed with the Dr today that the next time we are leaving Royal Oak Beaumont it will be with our baby in March/April 2013. 

For now Sam is shuffling around for the next week... 

 

Post Ablation Update

We arrived at Beaumont Royal Oak at 10am this morning. After checking in at the registration counter we headed up to the 8th floor central tower to the same waiting room as his other procedures - Schlafer Cardiology Center. They took Sam back right away to start his prep and came for his mom, dad and I to go see him after he was ready. They had taken blood work in the prep area and his potassium was elevated to 5.9 (a normal range is 3.2-5). Dr. Wong was concerned and ordered a redraw of his blood work. If Sam were to be under anesthesia and they were ablating with the elevated potassium level it could cause a lethal level of arrhythmia issues (his words not mine). After 7 pokes and 3 nurses the anesthesiologist was able to get his 2nd blood draw for his potassium level. It came back normal and at Noon they whisked him away to start. 

Around 3pm one of the nurses Kathy came out to update us - They had incubated him at 12:15pm and made it to the left side of his heart (again this wasn't an easy task and took about 30-40 minutes) and started to map out the left side. Dr. Wong was going to start ablating the heart using his 3D mapping while she was out talking to us.

[Image is of a heart being mapped... I couldn't obtain Sam's specifically but this google one gives a good idea]

At 7pm a familiar face came in to update Sam's mom, his cousin Jeff (in from Florida) and myself. It was Ann, the same nurse that we dealt with in May and it felt like deja vu. As like May, we were the last family in this waiting room and she was coming to give us an update and let us know it would still be a few hours... Dr. Wong had triggered Sam's heart into Atrial fibrillation/flutter and was trying to get it under control by continuing to ablate the left side of his heart where the hot spots were active. The spots that he ablated on the left in May were now active - hence causing this disruption in his heart. Again this is very common to have to undergo two ablations to get the actual arrhythmia issues corrected. Ann also mentioned that they are being very careful around his esophagus - as when they are ablating it can get too hot and they do not want a hole to form in his esophagus. 

At 8pm Ann came back out and said they have ablated the left side of Sam's heart and have now gone back over to the right side to map it to ensure that the flutter/fibrillation that should be corrected on the left goes to the right to become active. They did notice while mapping that the original ablation areas on the left are still doing great but they did find some activity in the top part of his right side that Dr. Wong was addressing. 

At 10:30pm Dr. Wong finally came in to see Sam's mom and I and talk about the procedure. After 10 hours Sam is in the recovery room and we are waiting to see him.. Dr. Wong said they spent most of their time on the left side of his heart  but he feels confident he got all of the signals. Dr. Wong even tested Sam's heart after completing the left side to ensure arrhythmia issues wouldn't occur after all the work he had just completed. However, while working on the heart he found something mysterious (he is really using some crazy words today)... all of a sudden his right atrium went into atrial flutter. It was very difficult to detect as it didn't appear in the same circut that they corrected in May (and it should have). However, After corrected and triple checking both sides he couldn't get it to replicate again - hopefully its left his heart for good!

I have filled my day with day time TV in the waiting room, stalking facebook, pinterest, work emails, texting/talking on the phone with friends/family, coloring and visitors... what a long day! Just counting down until I can see Sam and talk to him... more to come tomorrow!

Ablation #2 Scheduled for Tuesday.....

We met with Dr. Wong on Monday, August 27th for Sam's 3 month post-ablation update. Despite the fact he was running late and by late we mean almost 2 hours behind... the original plan for this appointment was for Dr. Wong to take Sam off all of his arrhythmia medications and put him on a 30 day heart monitor to see how his heart was doing after healing for 3 months. However, after we finally got to see Dr. Wong he decided against his original plan. Since Sam hasn't had too many episodes lately he didn't want to mess with his medications and cause something to go hay wire. Which we both appreciated.

Sam is having a 2nd ablation on Tuesday, October 9th at Beaumont. Dr. Wong is confident this should correct all of his arrhythmia issues once and for all. His plan of attack for this procedure is to successfully ablate the left side of Sam's heart. We are very hopeful he is right as this procedure comes about a month before his 1 year post-op mark. Dr. Wong mentioned the night before he plans to get 12 hours of sleep, eat a couple bowls of Wheaties for breakfast and be ready for another long day. I am looking forward to another hospital slumber party, hoping this one goes a little faster and we can finally put Sam's heart arrhythmia's behind us.

Stay tuned...