During your AF journey, is there one particular time you remember above all else?
For me it would have to be back in 2008, when I didn't know I had AF, and trying to pee into a bottle in CCU in the early hours after being on a trolley for 5 hours and getting interrupted by nurses trying to do my admission paperwork with me. Suffice it to say I held it until the morning!
Failing that, it'd be post op on my first ablation in July 2014... again pee was involved, and when I put the urine bottle between my legs I knocked the scab off my entry site on my right groin, and blood poured everywhere. Then there was a queue of rather nice young nurses pressing on my crotch then rolling me around on the bed to get me sorted... can't say it wasn't thoroughly unpleasant! The 18 hours bed rest after was a killer though!
Be interesting to hear other peoples strong memories, light hearted or scary moments from their journeys!
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jedimasterlincoln
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😂 I had a memorable pee moment too. My first ablation for SVT was done under sedation (it was a horrid experience). It took over 4 hours and I was given a couple of bags of IV fluid so when I was taken to CCU I told the nurse I needed a wee. Of course you need to lay flat for a few hours so the nurse brought me in a bedpan and placed it in under me at a particular angle saying, “don’t sit up and don’t bend your legs” 😜 I emerged from the next 3 cath lab visits with a catheter so thankfully I didn’t have to relive that drama.
It was almost 3 yr ago when I was diagnosed. Being a good home health nurse, I sat up in my recliner with my stethoscope listening to my crazy heart, wondering if it might b a fib. I woke up my hubby when it obviously wasn’t going to quit. Then deciding whether to call an ambulance for the 30 mile drive to the ER... we foolishly decided we could manage ourselves. Bob drove like a nascar driver, I was in the back seat with my stethoscope playing doctor. It was very scary and surreal but we made it and 3 days later I came home to start my anxiety ridden journey down the a fib path. Happily now, the beast is controlled and my anxiety went from 10 to 2 . A fib no longer rules my life.
After 10 days on a ward with no answers and only ever seeing junior doctors, I had had enough. It was a particularly low point , i unplugged the heart monitor and walked out of the ward. I needed some time away from the constant beeping and the 4 walls/curtain.
There is a little courtyard garden to look at from the corridor, and i broke down in tears, 10 days, very little sleep, irregular HR, fast AF, crap food, not seeing my kids to put them to bed. I was a broken man. A lovely cardiac rhythm nurse on her way to the ward saw me, she scooped me up, asked me what was wrong etc etc. I told her my story.
this all led to the second stand out moment.
The rhythm nurse, after taking me back to the ward had told her boss, the EP.
Withing 20 minutes he was sat next to me on my bed, he introduced himself as "the electrician" told me what was going on, unplugged me from the bloody monitor "we know you have AF, your'e not going to die from it, no need to be tethered........"
He was fuming that he had not been told that I was on the ward, my consultant (whom I never saw) was a plumber. Within 3 hours of meeting this amazing man I had had tests, scans, drugs review and a plan. and I was set free.
He also got me diagnosed and treated for sleep apnea , something my GP had refused to believe I had (oh, and it costs your surgery for the machine and masks etc!)
He also performed my ablation 18 months ago and was there to sort things when the drugs were messing me up. I'll never forget these two people, as far as I am concerned they saved my life
You are a very lucky man! God bless nurse and the EP - unbelievably how inefficient NHS system can be. After my second ablation that did not deliver (not yet I hope still!) I was in A&E about 6 times in last two months, not counting two nights in CCU and two in ACU. And all is needed is to check the antyarrhythmics dosage and the regular ECG and access to Arrhythmia nurse and sometimes the cardiologist ambulatory.
About ten years ago, after I’d had repeated ‘funny turns’ which my GP couldn’t identify, I stopped using white spirit and other solvents in my oil painting out of desperation in case something I was doing was causing the horrible symptoms.
Joy of joys!!!!! The funny turns stopped completely - I had found the cause!! The relief was immense - and it was sooo simple - life returned to normal.
I remember thinking my GP was a killjoy when I told him a year or so later about my cure and he looked sceptical. Anyway the AF started up again two or three years later and was finally caught and diagnosed in 2013.
That false dawn taught me that the obvious ‘solution’ isn’t always correct in any walk of life. ☹️
Another memory was at a destination wedding 2000km from home a year ago, before I’d been diagnosed with AF or Flutter. I was feeling great and had a glass of champagne and hit the dance floor then felt my heart going crazy (170bpm tachycardia). The wedding was at the resort we staying at so I went back to our room and took some meds and had a rest. The bride and her mother and a lot of the guests were nurses and all I could think was “I don’t want to ask anyone for help and be responsible for ruining the wedding”.
The one that always comes back to me was when I was first hospitalised with AF. That was a Friday evening so I was just put on a monitor and left until Monday when a cardiologist turned up. He told me cheerily that my atria were beating at 400 BPM but 'not all of them are getting through, otherwise you'd be dead!' I can't think why I suffered from anxiety for quite a while afterwards.......
That was in about 2002, thank goodness information and treatment have been transformed since then, but I think the anxiety caused by the onset of AF will always happen, so thank goodness again for support groups 💞
I was an emergency admission to the critical cardiac ward in 2014 and diagnosed with heart failure and AF. After 6 days I was going a bit stir crazy, I was in a room on my own and attached to a monitor. I was told that I could unplug myself to go to the loo, bathroom but must not stay unplugged for very long, my monitor also sent the readings to the nurses station outside my room. On days six I decided to go walk about, found one of the womens wards and went in, introduced myself and had some lovely chats with the inmates. Nurse appeared and I was ushered back to my room, you must stay on your monitor, slapped wrist! I did it a few more times (not for long periods, just needed some company) same happened, nurse found me, told me to go back to my room. AS she went away she was muttering something and 10 mins later she turned up with a devise, it was a remote control monitor. It was on a ribbon cord and just hung round your neck and plugged into the leads attached to me. It also sent my readings to the monitor on the nursing station. So also meant no beeping monitor in my room, peace at last.
She said I was very lucky she had remembered that they had it, it was shoved in the back of a draw, it was the only one on the ward. So for my final 6 days I could wander wherever (within reason lol). I would leave a little note on my bed - Gone to see ladies on ward 2 or Mrs P in room 1. She was an old lady with very few visitors and quite ill, but a wonderful person to talk to.
Although it is lovely to have a room of your own it does get very lonely, one window to look out of with no great view and I donn't watch loads of telly. I did ask if I could go on a ward after 6 days but was told no. Also the cardiac ward has no mobile phone signal, so could not even phone friends on my mobile. It is situated in the centre the the complex and nowt gets through.
Always when on CCU I've had a side room en suite and hooked up to a monitor with a thick wire. It just about reaches to the loo, but the door doesn't shut because of the wire. I felt like a zoo exhibit.
Just after diagnosis I had booked a scuba dive - we were living on a boat in the Caribbean at that time - would I - wouldn’t I declare heart Arrythmia? Knowing the risks. It was a shallow dive, no more than 15m.
I didn’t declare and was determined to do one last dive and what a dive! I buddied with a marine biologist researching the affect of tourist scuba and snorkeling on the coral reef and sea floor, my very last dive - somewhat prophetic! By the way - snorkeling and to a lesser extent scuba has had a very detrimental affect, mainly through careless use of fins disturbing the sea bed or touching coral as well as souvenir hunters.
More recently - having a rather symptomatic episode on a small boat in the middle of Icelandic fiorjd whilst whale watching when 2 humpback whales started eye spying and then one breached nearby. Adrenaline, adrenaline.
Very exciting and SO glad I didn’t miss it! Funnily enough I can only remember one hospital episode and that was not because of AF.
My first episode of Afib started when I was in the hairdresser having my hair washed. When I got up from the basin, I felt dizzy, as you sometimes do, and then my heart went into the crazy AF mode, but of course I didn't know what it was. I walked out of the hairdresser with soaking wet hair and drove myself!! to the GP's surgery. I burst into reception saying there was something very wrong with my heart, followed in hot pursuit by a very anxious hairdresser. Off I went in the ambulance and having been told I was not having a heart attack, was put on the ward and monitored. AF went on all night and I thought that I would surely die! The next morning the consultant came round with his team of students. They all stood around while he told me what was going on with my heart, namely AF. He then put his hand on mine, and said 'Don't worry we will sort you out.' Immediately, my heart returned to NSR and the students all gasped! The consultant went off with a smile on his face and his students claiming he had healing hands. Now 18 years later, I am still here, still have AF. I wonder where that consultant is?!!!
I wonder if he could grab my dodgy knee and do the same thing! I once reverted on canulation in A&E... and I like to mention it when I visit to put extra pressure on the lady with the needles!
Some lovely stories. My treasured memory is of Jo Jo (a lady I met in RAMU) and the look on her face when I suddenly started to bleed profusely after having a blood test. I was used to it being on Rivaroxiban! She leapt off the adjacent bed to come to my aid and at that point remembered that she was hooked up to a cathater. When the nurses found us we were giggling like a couple of two year olds.
I guess my most memorable moment was how my AF was discovered. I had a stroke in the middle of the night. I woke up knowing I was having a stroke. Got dressed and woke my grandson to call an ambulance for me. I was standing on the landing when it struck. I was paralysed on one side. I recovered after arriving at the hospital. Tests showed I had 2 aneurysms. I was told by my doctor that it was my stroke of luck. As now the aneurysms are fixed. I also learned I had a hole in my heart and AF. A perfect storm for a. stroke. I am on Warfarin for life. But I don't mind. Just glad to have survived and be mobile.
My moment was in resus being violently sick from a dose of morphine and the paperwork people asking me if I had any pressure sores on my bottom!! You can guess my reply! lol!
Two and a half years ago and still not right. When I came round from my op, I was hallucinating on morphine. The nurse said if you feel pain just squeeze the button. I remember a strobing light across the room and asked the nurse to switch it off or turn it away; she said there's nothing there! In addition when staff came into the ward wearing that light green clothing and boots, I thought they were aliens; they had no nose and mouth! Perhaps these were memories from the op. In addiction to ablation I had valve repair and bypass.
Mine was in 2013. Went to bed as normal Sunday night.Had been very low because my mum had recently died,work was awful,had had a few ' palpitations ' put down to stress. Woke up in dire straits,norovirus! Threw up in bedroom, hub went off to get bowl and cloth to clear up...I staggered off to bathroom..passed out...knocked my face up.pooed myself....( Sorry for details for those of a delicate dispositi on) heart was going crazy.Cleaned up,back to bed, passed out and flopped onto bed.Bryan called ambulance.Checking me over did ecg,any heart problems known they said..well my mum had AF. Well,you have too.We are taking you in!
Break it to be gently!mum died of an AF induced stroke,she was not anticoagulated,so I was off my head with worry! They kept me in overnight,isolated because I was still throwing up etc,sent me home said they would refer me.
Because of mums history,and that she was my Gps medical secretary I think,my GP rang an urgent referral through and the rest is history.
so had I had AF for a while or did the Nirovirus cause it?
For me it was Christmas 2016 spent in the hospital in a 'monitored care unit' wired up for sound with no idea of what I was getting into and how my life was going to change. No getting out of bed for three and a half days, luckily I had my own room with a window on the parking lot and some trees. As I hadn't been in a hospital - even overnight - for over 25 years it was a bit of a shock (technically speaking, that should have worked !).
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