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Date with fate post 40 - A-fib rears its ugly head after five years
This entry was posted on 7/14/2011 1:30 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies.
I should have seen the signs - the symptoms. Heide and I had just spent a couple arduous years caring for my mother. I had moved in to her house for the last six months of her life to care for her - putting my life on hold. A year earlier, I had been in a wheelchair myself for circulation issues. And, it had been around five years since my bout with my "intolerable" heart arrythmia - the evil partner of the circulation condition. But after the Mom ordeal, I was a wreak.
On a beautiful August day in the summer of 2001, Heide and I attended an ambulance colleague's wedding at the Threshery Park between Janesville and Edgerton. Threshery Park is a place where old farm and industrial equipment is displayed and demonstrated. They offer to let you get married on an old steam engine of your choice. It was a rather hot day. I should have stayed in the shade more. We took the opportunity to stay at Mom's house the night after the wedding. It was a good excuse to check in on the property as Mom had died that past late March and we now owned the house.
About six in the morning, I was jolted out of bed by a pounding in my chest. I knew immediately it was the extremely temperamental Atrial Fibrillation rearing its ugly head after a five year absence. In my case, it is unmanageable if left untreated. Some people live with various versions of it just fine. I however, crumble like wet cardboard. My heart (no pun intended) sank as the memory of the first episode five years earlier hit me between the eyes. It was treated then with medications and a five-day hospital stay in intermediate intensive care.
Because it had been so long since the condition had occurred, I did not have medications on hand to simmer the condition down. This would come later in the evolution. Heide drove me to my Madison hospital while I fell into disrepair.
Once in the emergency room, to my surprise there was no talk of a hospital stay. "You have progressed to cardioversion (a shock)," the ER doc said with an ominous glower.
The nurse explained as she shaved my chest for the electrodes that I was too far along in the condition to mess with a week in the hospital hoping meds would fix it. I would need a shock. Then she explained that the shock would stop my heart and then they would wait for it to start again....presumably with a good rhythm. I was so sick by that time, I really did not care. And one more tid-bit of information came from the nurse; I would feel and look like I had been hit by lightning.
This was all so contrary to my ambulance low-level training where we started stopped hearts with a shock. I would later learn in upper level ambulance paramedic training that they do this stopping of the heart and then starting, cardioversion procedure all the time to patients. Regardless, this fine day I was to be zapped.
It did not dawn on me until the next day, that they basically had killed me and then....hoped I would come back to life. And, the nurse was right, the next day I had a red mark on my chest like a lightning strike.
With a breif parting lecture from the ER doc, I learned I could indeed live with this condition and I should not panic. The lecture helped, and has always stuck in my mind as the condition has attacked me more often in my older age.
That next day I felt like I had been hit by a truck. But, the temperamental rhythm was gone and the good old lub-dub pulse was back - at least for awile.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Air Force Senior Airman Daniel James Johnson, 23, Schiller Park, Illinois (formerly of Monona, Wisconsin), died on Tuesday, October 5, 2010 near Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was killed when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Flight, 30th Civil Engineer Squadron, 30th Mission Support Group, 30th Space Wing, based out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. CNN.com noted Johnson was conducting explosive ordnance disposal operations when he was killed.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Daniel was a former Cottage Grove, Wisconsin resident, having moved there in 1997. He attended Monona Grove High School and graduated from in June 2005. The paper also noted Johnson and another airman, who was injured, were conducting explosive ordnance disposal when the IED struck their unit. Johnson entered the Air Force in 2006 and had served a tour of duty in Iraq in 2009. He was recently married to wife, Kristen, in California in June of 2010.
The Air Force Times noted Johnson was west of Kandahar when his unit was attacked. Johnson was on his second tour in a war zone and had completed less than a month of the current deployment. Daniel had been a good student and three-sport athlete. Johnson was on the football, swimming, and track teams. He also was editor of the school yearbook and worked on the student newspaper.
WLS Television 27 via their Website noted Schiller Park is a northwest suburb of Chicago. Johnson had studied at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois, for a while before entering the Air Force. The article also noted Daniel worked at a Christian youth camp every summer.
The Wisconsin State Journal noted that Daniel had done some acting in school and was photo editor of the school yearbook. He played outside linebacker and running back for three years on the football team and was a member of the 2004 Monona Grove team that had a 13-1 season.
The Website freedomremembered.com placing an obituary for Johnson online notes Daniel Johnson was born on June 20, 1987 in Ely, Minnesota. At one time he had hoped to be an emergency medical technician. He was a participant in the Big Brothers, Big Sisters programs.
At the time of his death Daniel Johnson was survived by his wife Kristen; father Jim Johnson; mother Holly Higgins; and, three brothers Peter, Will, and Erik Johnson. He was laid to rest at Santa Maria Cemetery in Santa Maria, California. Senior Airman Daniel Johnson was the 23rd Wisconsin military service person killed in Afghanistan since October 2001.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
101,795 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
10,066 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,472 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1657 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
921 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
1 American/Coalition casualty in Libyan "Operation Odyssey Dawn" since March, 2011
32,146 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
12,450 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
107 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
34 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
3 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in the U.S. related to "The War on Terror" since October, 2001.
149 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
5 journalists (regional and independents) have been killed in Libya since March, 2011.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org .
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