Matters of the Heart

Since a few of my close friends have recently inquired about the heart procedure I mentioned a couple of days ago, I thought it would be appropriate (and save me a lot of text messaging) to explain what the heck I'm talking about.

Let me start by saying, I didn't make a big deal about it beforehand because I was a little scared and it was easier to just not talk about it much. Distraction, distraction, distraction!

This whole, little journey started back at the end of March (it actually stated 7 years ago, but I'll get back to that). I was walking to work one morning, through the park (as in the park that was in Full House that I happen to live by), and all the sudden I felt really light-headed and my heart was RACING. This had happened before and I usually could just sit down and take some deep breaths and it would go away. That, unfortunately, was not working this time. After about 10 minutes of some extreme heart beating, I finally called 911 and told them I thought I was having a panic attack. A few minutes later a fire truck showed up and assessed the situation with such clever insights as,

"You don't seem to be panicking"

and

"Are you SURE you didn't do any drugs this morning?"

Finally, the EMTs showed up, and coincidentally, one of them had worked at a cardiologist's office previously. She kindly informed me that I wasn't having a panic attack, but I have a condition called Supraventricular Tachycardia or SVT.

(If you would like to know more about it see here.)

Basically, all people have normal and abnormal electrical nodes in the hearts while they are developing in utero, and the abnormal ones go away before birth. One of my abnormal nodes just never went away. Every now and then it is triggered and causes my upper ventricles to start racing. Like, over 200 beats per minute racing. One EMT clocked it at 270 at one point!

This is not actually that serious, unless you are old, have another condition or routinely pass out because of it. After talking to the doctor, I realized that I have had this since I was about 18 and always thought it was a panic attack. There are three types of treatment:

1. By holding your breath, gagging yourself or a couple other things, you can stimulate a nerve that causes everything to go back to normal. I had been doing this in the past without knowing it, hence never being diagnosed.

2. Take a beta blocker all the time. These suck! I had to take them for a week and felt horrible.

3. A simple low-risk, high-yield procedure. This is where I ended up.

After that episode and a subsequent doctor's visit, I decided I wasn't quite ready for the procedure, because it only happened every 6-8 months and I could always get it under control on my own, with the exception of the last time. The doctor was great, and said since I wasn't in any danger of doing any damage to my heart, I didn't need the procedure at that time.

Fast forward to May and SVT struck again. I was about to workout (aka have my ass kicked) at CrossFit, when the old ticker got to racing. Two very nice strangers drove me to the hospital, but I got it to stop on the way after about 15 minutes. I went in just in case, but decided now was the time to revisit the procedure option. I was uncomfortable with the fact that it had only been 2 months since the previous episode and it was getting harder to get them under control.

So Monday, I went to Santa Clara and had the procedure done. It was a full day at the hospital, but the procedure itself only took an hour. They make a small inscion in your femoral vein and run some catheters to your heart. They trigger the abnormal node to map its location and then use heat to burn it off. I was only sedated and I'm pretty sure I chatted away through the whole thing. I bet the doctor loved that. After it was over, I had to lay flat for 4 hours and then show them I could walk around and then we went home. A couple days rest and I'm good as new, minus SVT.

Thank you all for your concern and support. A small bump in the road, but now I don't have to worry about it anymore.