Last fall I wrote a post about a night when I went into SVT at work right after report, ended up in the ED, and had to be chemically converted. I was horribly embarrassed because I am a cardiac nurse, work on a cardiac stepdown, and was surrounded by well meaning co-workers when I was feeling exceptionally vulnerable.
Anyway, since then I have had an echo, a holter, and several more ecg's, all of which were normal, and have attempted to control the episodes of SVT with medications. Nothing I have tried has been entirely successful, all have had NASTY side effects, and after an episode of syncope at home in Feb, I have decided to go forward with an EPS and ablation tomorrow.
My cardiologist, who was there the night that I had the episode at work, is conviced that the problem is with AV nodal reentry tach, for which there is a 95% cure rate with ablation, so I am looking forward to hopefully having this all behind me after tomorrow!!
But on the other hand, is the part of me that REALLY hates the idea of being in the cath lab as a patient for any reason. Worst of all, I will end up on my floor as a patient. Groin checks from my peers are not my idea of a fun day off!!! I am realllllly hoping that the doc doesn't decide to keep me overnight, because I don't want to be there when my shift hits the floor tomorrow night.
I was doing pretty well with the anxiety, for the most part, other than talking about the procedure too much, until about 0700 this morning. At that point the procedure wasn't next week, or even Thursday anymore, but TOMORROW.
Anyway, wish me luck. I have a very good doc, but I can use all that I can get, if only to get me home early
Specializes in Cardiothoracic Transplant Telemetry.
So TODAY was the big day, and all went well. The ectopic pathway was very close to the AV node, so he wasn't able to ablate all of it, but my doc feels that it should be enough for a cure. I received a lot of sedation (14 of Versed, 425 of Fentanyl and 10 of Valium and 10 of phenergan) because I was having a lot of positional right shoulder pain, and changing positions was not an option. I am still feeling really hung over.
The best part was that my doc didn't send me up to my floor after all, but let me do my 6 hours of bedrest down in short stay. I was very happy not to be wheeled up to my own floor, or subjected to groin checks from my peers. Thank all of you for your kind thoughts
khirbz
203 Posts
Goodluck.