Overall, he is doing extremely well. Over the past month he has had occasional short episodes where he thought he might have been in atrial fibrillation. Most of these lasted on a few minutes and were not intense or severe. Only once, this past Saturday night, has he gone into full-blown atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter. It lasted about 45 minutes.
Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed to see him go back into a-fib. But, he discussed this episode with the doctor who told him that it was not at all alarming or unexpected for him to still have these episodes. One month out from the ablation is not long enough for his heart to have fully healed.
Grandad will see Dr. Rasekh again in two months. After that he will wear an event monitor for the next month and then return to the doctor's office after they receive the results from the monitor. At that time they will recommend a course of action and/or treatment. It may be necessary for him to have an additional cardiac ablation or they may be able to begin weaning him off of some of the medications he is taking to control his heartbeat. I do want to note that we knew when he had this ablation that it might have to be done as many as two or three times.
I am very encouraged by how well Grandad is doing. For the first time in more than three years, he has energy. His personality is back to normal. And his color looks healthy and pink, not the sickly gray color it has been for the past three years.And it's very encouraging that he didn't actually have a heart attack when we recently got a copy of the hospital bill. It was $83,000 for the procedure and the one-night stay in the hospital. Thank God we have excellent insurance coverage!
We are heading to San Antonio this afternoon to spend a four-day weekend with Our Little Princess. I can't wait for her to see her healthy, new Grandad. She already has more fun with him than anyone else. The new, improved Grandad may be more excitement than she can take.
