I called the hospital to ask them if it was all right to take the drug. Each pill contains 250 mg acetaminophen, 250 mg aspirin, and 65 mg caffeine, and you take two of them at the first sign of symptoms. My heart condition had made caffeine a dangerous substance for me, but not any more. The CCU Charge Nurse called me back and okayed me to take it. I took it just as the flashing lights began to disappear. I closed all the shades, turned off all the lights, lay down on my couch, and waited for the two-ton hydraulic press. All I got was a minor little headache. The stuff works!

Then at 8 PM my neighbor turned on his LOUD STEREO. I had to pound on his door to get him to open up. "Look," I said, "I’ve just been through heart surgery and I have a migraine. Could you please turn your music down?" I think the bloody Band-Aid on my neck convinced him. Some people’s children!

As I write this I’ve got my lights and monitor brightness way down low (even the refrigerator light is offensive to me now), but I’m getting better as I write and upload this web page. I don’t usually like to take drugs, but one thing I learned form the experience is this: there are situations where it is perfectly legitimate to take drugs. If you are nervous before a surgical operation, can’t sleep after one, or you have a splitting migraine ... take the appropriate drugs. It’s not necessary to suffer.

I had taken Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off from work, so Monday I was ready to return, even if for only half a day. People asked me about how it went and were relieved that I was back all in once piece, alive, and healthy. I drank my first can of Dr. Pepper in eleven years, and started my coffee habit slowly. I developed a recipe for a cheap mocha:

• Pour an envelope of hot chocolate mix into your coffee cup.
• Fill it halfway with coffee.
• Fill it the rest of the way with hot water.
• Stir it up
• Enjoy!

By the following weekend I had gone two weeks without playing hockey, and I was getting a bit grumpy. So I went down to Hockey Workout in San Jose. It was a place where you can lace up your skates and practice your shot ... or, if you’re a goalie, strap on your pads and practice your saves. I spent about an hour taking shots and stretching out ... what the hell, just a week ago I had had heart surgery; wanna see my scar?

The weekend after that, however, I was feeling quite well ... and it had been three weeks since I’d played any serious hockey. I was quite a hockey junkie then, so when the opportunity to play some serious hockey presented itself, I took it...

I wrote a letter to the hockey mailing list I subscribe to.

Introduction
Let me bend your ear for a little while to tell you the epilogue to what I hope turns out to be a pivotal moment in my life, an event in which things changed substantially for the better.

Background
Perhaps you’ve seen me play during a tournament or some rough game when I would suddenly kneel on my pads and rest, apparently oblivious to the game. I used to have a heart condition that would cause a very rapid pulse, and I was trying to control it. On a few occasions I got tachycardia while the action was in front of my net, and there was no opportunity to rest. This was not good for my game.

Surgery
Two weeks ago I underwent minor heart surgery to finally fix the problem. (How can heart surgery be minor, you you ask? Well, it did not involve rib spreaders or a big ugly scar on my chest; just long electrical catheters and some mighty phat needle tracks. It was more fun than having my wisdom teeth out. Really!) My cardiologist assured me that part of his procedure included quality assurance: by using the same technique to find the extra nerve that caused the problem, he would verify that he had indeed cooked it. (A quality assurance engineer would call that white-box testing.)

Quality Assurance
This is my heart we’re talking about. How do I know that it’s been fixed, beyond just taking the doctor’s word for it? I’ve been learning the joys of coffee, a substance previously forbidden to me, and I’ve had no hint of tachycardia. My colleagues at work would call this black-box testing to regress an intermittent bug. But how do I really know?

The Acid Test
Tonight I did what my buddies at work would call stress-testing. I played my first hockey game since surgery. For a good hour and a half I guarded my net against some fairly competitive players. A couple of times I felt the conditions that used to be pretty much guaranteed to bring on tachycardia ... and nothing happened. Nothing but a good solid pulse. I had a tremendously fun game, and for the first time in a long time I played without fear.

Conclusion
I hope that some of my happiness tonight rubs off on you. My heart works ... it’s no longer broken.

So within two weeks after surgery, my life was back to normal. I should say, back to better than normal. Before, "normal" meant I’d be okay as long as I stayed away from caffeine and carefully monitored my heart when I played hockey. Now normal means I can drink coffee and play hockey like anyone else, and not worry about the possibility of tachycardia any more.

Next: Followup

Catheter Ablation for Tachycardia: My Experience as a Patient. Revised: 11/09/2001
URL: http://www.timberwoof.com/surgery/index.shtml
Copyright ©1998, 1999, 2001 by Michael Roeder. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use or distribution of any text, photos, or artwork from this website, without the express written permission of the owner, is in violation of U.S. and international copyright laws.
The author is a software engineer, not a physician. This web site is not intended to give any medical advice, render any diagnosis, or recommend any course of treatment. This web site has not been reviewed by any doctor. Your experience may differ from the author’s. If you have any heart symptoms, see your doctor.