Hospital-ing it up-3/9/2011

Hi All!

Well, this has been uneventful...yay! I got to the hospital Monday afternoon and they put on my first dose of Sotolol. An hour after each dose, I get an EKG to see if the QRS waves on my EKG widen. If they do, I'll need to come off the drug because that can cause arrhythmias (oddly so, because the drug is an anti-arhythmic. Hmmm.)

So far, so good though! All is normal, which are here is excellent news. The docs did notice Sparky doing some odd pacing things, which they determined that Sparky's 3rd lead that wasn't supposed to pace me was pacing every once in a while, and giving me that sick, dizzy, just punched feeling. It wasn't doing anything for me therapeutically, so my doc turned that lead off. Hopefully, that will settle that problem-o once and for all.

I've been getting a mountain of stuff done while I'm here- reading I needed to catch up on, bills, insurance and disability paperwork. It's like I've been on a paperwork/to-do list spa get-a-way! (Minus the spa stuff. Though they have changed the soap to a nice cucumber melon scented body wash, so that's pretty swanky.)

I've also relearned the beauty of Ambien. I try not to take it at home, because I get used to it, and it stops working. But I always take in the hospital because with the beeping, talking, and old people hollering, a good night's sleep is always 10 milligrams away.

Since I hadn't used Ambien in awhile, it really effected me. I konked out, and woke up the next morning feeling like a champ. Ah, perfect. Only later did I find out that I had gotten an EKG at 2am and though the nurse said I was talking and seemed totally alert, I have no recollection of said EKG occurring. So the question is: Is this a new technique to pad the bill?"Oh Mrs Morrelli, of COURSE you got an EKG at 2am. You just don't remember!". Or is paranoia a side effect of the Ambien? Who's to say?

I did run into one of my favorite docs who is not my doc. She is a resident, and works on the cardiology team, and right now I'm a ward of the electrophyisology team. We were talking in the halls, and I was telling her how I'm just trying to figure out what I can expect from life from here on out. I seem pretty stable these days, better energy than before, but still get completely wrecked if I do too much. The meds have pretty much done what they are going to do, so it's not unreasonable to think I'll be like this for the long term. The good news is she said frequently if people are this stable, they don't usually have a big fall of the cliff and get tons worse. So it was nice to have that fear allayed. So the next step for me is to really figure out how I want to live my life- and I mean live it. Not just waiting with the hope that I'm going to pop up one day all better, but doing what I can to increase the quality of my life, and to enjoy life. That doesn't need to be put on hold. I don't have time to put that on hold. So stay tuned, I expect to see some changes coming around the bend!

In other news- I've found the best thing on the Heart Healthy Menu here! (that is quite a feat). 1st- The Montlake Cut sandwich- wheat bread, roasted turkey, provolone, roasted red peppers, avocado, light mayo. Delish!! 2nd- They have recently added black beans to the menu (I know, because I could recite that menu to you all right now, but I'll leave it as a surprise in case you're ever here). So I mashed up my black beans, and ate them with Baked Lay's, like bean dip! Talk about a MacGuyver move right? Totally impressed with myself.

Well, I'm off to MacGuyver some breakfast up now...Scrambled eggs, peanut butter and ketchup? Hmm, my winning streak may be over.

I love you all!
Jana