According to the UW, approximately $40,000! All I can say is thank goodness for insurance. A $2,600 co-pay is bad enough!
Yes, I had heart surgery on January 28th, to correct my tachycardia. Yolanda was nice enough to call and see how I was doing and I’ve been bad not returning her call.
Let me set the scene… No food or drink from midnight the night before. Read… “Cranking-ass-Kim” arrives at the UW in Seattle at 6:15am. Yippee! I was in a gown and waiting by 7am or so.
“This is a very invasive procedure; there will be no sedation or pain medication…”
Seriously.
And then there’s the little issue of hoping (PRAYING) you’ll go into tach while on the table otherwise they can’t find it and you get sent home.
They put you on this ROCK hard table that is basically one huge x-ray machine. To my left is a bank of monitors and there is my skeleton being displayed for all to see! It was like watching “Wolverine” all over again. Seriously, had to be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Then I glanced over to the tray and saw the pink garden hoses they were about to stick me with.
Two 12 gauge catheters in each side of my groin. OW OW OW OWWWW
One in my jugular. FRICK!
Kimmie proceeds to go into 130 tach immediately from nerves. “That’s not it.”, I tell them. “It goes twice that fast when it’s bad.”
9am… 10am… 11am… (Mapping my heart…)
The nurse had to be the most fabulous person on Earth. She stayed at my head the entire procedure (behind the leaded glass wall). I got the worst charlie horse in my neck on my right side from when they had me look left to put the catheter in. She gave me a massage and got me hot packs and pillows and talked dogs and dog shows when I’d get upset. When the charlie horse got so bad, she kept after the doc to give me pain meds until he relented. Granted, it wasn’t anything to knock me out as they didn’t want it to get in the way of the heart rhythm.
They gave Mark an update around 11 and sent him on his way for lunch; it was going to be a long day.
Around 1pm they FINALLY hit the lottery and found the BIG ONE that makes me hit 190 bpm. It was located in my upper right atrium.
About now, I’m in tears. The neck pain is a 7 out of 10 and the nurse basically tells the doc I’m getting some Benadryl to relax me or he was gonna get his butt kicked.
I finally dozed off and I wake up when they are “burning” the extra pathway in my right atrium. Not nice at all people! They use radio waves on the tip of one of the catheters and it shuts down the affected area.
I guess about 3 they go talk to Mark and tell him the smaller 130bpm area is wrapped within my normal AV node . (you need this one to make your heart beat.) If they burned or froze it they were very concerned I would need a pacemaker to make my heartbeat. Mark told them I had enough radiation for a lifetime and to leave it alone.
Finally to my room around 3:30 and I tell Mark to go home and take care of the dogs. I proceed to crash until dinner when they fed me roast beef, mashed taters and CHEESECAKE! HAZAH!
In the four weeks since surgery I’ve had 3 events. All have involved either me exceeding my one cup of coffee a day allowance, or copious amounts of CHOCOLATE! Compare that to 20 a day and I call it a huge success.
No more worries about me passing out in the ring!
Now if I could get motivated enough to train for the Seattle half-marathon in November and I’ll drag Nancy and Le’o with me…
