The Heart of the Matter

Last week I was getting my blog post for the week together when I

realized that I was having an atrial fibrillation. This is a cardiac arrhythmia in which the heart beats too fast and irregularly. Unlike a ventricular arrhythmia, it is not dangerous in itself, as the blood continues to circulate, sort of, albeit in a reduced fashion. A problem arises if the fibrillation continues for some time, however, as eddies of blood move within the heart chambers and blood clots are formed that can leave the heart and travel to the brain, causing stroke. It is said that those of us with atrial fibrillation risk having a stroke at five times the rate of the general populace. In addition, long fibrillations mean that the heart is beating too fast for a prolonged period, and eventually it gets worn out, leading to cardiac insufficiency.

All this went through my mind as I marked off the hours during the evening; 4 and counting. Then I slept, hoping it would be gone like magic when I awoke, the usual case with me. No such luck, and when an early morning dose of medicine had not helped, I went to the emergency room. Surely I would be home in a few hours, I told myself, as I would be given medication to add to that I had already taken. Just in case, I packed my toothbrush.

Thus began what would become a four-day odyssey through the emergency room and then onto a ward. Dozing and then staring at the curtain in the little emergency room cubicle, I had plenty of time to reflect on why this had happened. Not in the “why me” sense, but understanding a bit about the emotional component of a fibrillation. I had this condition for years before it occurred to me that there was an emotional component. I began to understand that a fibrillation is a panic attack of the heart, really, in response to a particular emotional constellation. I began to converse with my heart, which proved very difficult at first. It is so easy to take it for granted, as it usually just quietly beats on and on. Not for it the more excited reactions of the gut, for instance. Its very dependability and regularity make it ho-hum. Only when I was able to compare the strength and rhythm of the beat with the hop, skip and jump or rapid but weak pitter-patter of a fibrillation could I see it as a bulwark and a protector that is also a partner in feeling: “matters of the heart”.

Three days of treatment with three different medications slowed the heart rate but did nothing to alleviate the irregularity. Finally came the welcome news that I would have a type of cardioversion, an electric shock to the heart that almost always restores normal rhythm. One is put to sleep for 2 minutes with an injection into the port of one’s IV drip, so one doesn’t even feel the needle. With such a short anesthesia one has few aftereffects. The worst part of the whole procedure was filling out the lengthy form for the anesthesiologist, probably the same form one fills out if one is having a far larger op.

To shock the heart sounds, well, heartless. What a way to treat the organ of love and feeling! But then one remembers that it is electric impulses that make the heart beat, and Eros shoots his arrows into the heart. Deep feeling is not namby-pamby. Neither was my feeling when I awoke and saw the lovely regular pattern of the EKG. It worked!

My regularly beating heart and I are now home, and I have a greater appreciation of this steady companion. We’re conversing regularly, and I hope that it will have little further need of panicking and fibrillating.