Bionic Woman

It's in! My newly installed Reveal Implant Loop Monitor! Read here if you missed that update.

I went in on Wed. morning for my treadmill test which took no longer than an hour. From there I had to wait on the results to give the go-ahead for the surgery. While I waited, they stuck me in a hospital bed and hooked me up to an IV for the next 5 hours. Boring, totally. I was finally in the Electrophysiology Lab for my surgery a little after 2-ish. Was out of there a little after 3-ish and home by 5:00!

The procedure was pretty simple in itself, but there just couldn't be a dull moment if I'm around could there?! Of course not! Well, it went downhill a little couple hours before surgery. They gave me some antibiotics in the IV drip called Vancomycin; routine to have some antibiotics before a surgery. I'm deathly allergic to Penicillin, so they had to use this drug. After being hooked up to this for a little while, Dr. W. came up to visit me and tell me he was ready whenever I was, but that the antibiotics needed to finish up. He commented that it was dripping very slowly, and left the room. I started watching the drip and noticed it was literally letting one drip go every 10 seconds. I'll be here all week if we wait on this! So I buzz the nurse, she comes in and finds a kink in my line near my elbow. I must have bent my elbow too much and caught it in a pinch - an hour ago! So, she fixes the kink and the drips begin much quicker. I settle back into some tv watching, and notice that I begin to itch my head uncontrollably. I couldn't stop scratching and my head began to feel like something was burning under my skin. My nose started to itch, around my eyes a bit too. So I buzz the nurse again and tell her that I'm really itchy. After checking me over, she obviously does not like this as I'm telling her I'm not feeling so good, and rushes out of the room and tells me she'll be right back.

Back in she ran and pushes some "Benadryl" into my line quickly and I immediately taste and smell something horrible like rubbing alcohol or metal or something. I yelled "yuck!" and told her what I was tasting and smelling, and suddenly I did not feel good AT ALL! My entire body flushed with such hot sensations, I was sweaty, dizzy, felt like I could not breathe well and was not able to see very well. I felt really really wrong and kept telling her that and asking if she was sure that was benadryl! She kept trying to reassure me, but I kept telling her something was wrong, I wanted to scream outloud by my body was like slow motion, even my speech. It was so weird. She told me she needed to get something and she'd be outside my room for a just second. She came back in with another nurse, some cart the other one was fooling with and my main nurse hooked me up to the blood pressure machine and oxygen measure thingy. My BP was down, heart rate was way up but my oxygen was still 100%, good thing. I started to feel better after a few minutes. Thank goodness!

Apparently what happened was when I was given the Vancomycin drip, I had an adverse reaction dubbed "red man syndrome or red neck syndrome". When she pushed in the Benadryl, that action pushed the rest of the Vancomycin that was still in my tube, into my body way too fast, and my reaction to it intensified because of how fast the meds were administered. All so confusing, but glad it turned out OK in the end. This is how I understood it when explained to me. I'm not a nurse or doctor, so I could have completely just screwed up this description. That's my disclaimer... haha!

Needless to say, once it was time for me to have my surgery, there was no way I wanted any sedatives put into my IV to keep me "calm" during the implant. I had had enough excitement for one day and was afraid of what reaction I might have to something else. I opted to have no sedation during the procedure, but he numbed the area with local anesthesia. I bit-the-bullet in the literal sense during this by not taking anything while it was done. Dr. Wrobleski joked to the recovery nurse that he just gave me a block of wood to knaw on - ha-ha! He actually does joke around, he was not all "business" this time and made me feel very comfortable in the operating room. I'm good to go now, all hooked up and ready for some heart episodes! The area is a little sore of course, but it'll be better soon!