Burning It All Down

I'm running away from my responsibilities, and it feels good. - Michael Gary Scott

So, first things first, and surprise! My ablation is actually scheduled for tomorrow morning, 5/11 at 7:30 AM. I have done a VERY poor job of keeping folks updated, but honestly it’s because 1) I have been busy, and 2) I’ve been trying to ignore the fact that it’s happening. Womp womp.

Alas, it is happening and it’s happening in 9 hours, and I will be in the procedure for at least 5, and more likely 10, so I might not be very conscious of what’s happening until this time tomorrow night. Thus, I wanted you all to know what the hell was happening before I was unable to let you know.

This is a “normal” ablation, but just like everything, nothing is quite normal for me. As it stands, the plan/hope is that I go in there tomorrow, they find all the areas they need to ablate, they ablate them all, and I come home late Tuesday. There are two ways this could go kinky, only one of which would necessitate a longer hospital stay:

1. They do not get all areas ablated. That means they get what they can, they send me home, I continue to take some meds they’d rather I be able to quit taking, and we do this again in a little while.

2. They get in there and find that I need a pacemaker. If I qualify for something called a “leadless” pacemaker, the hope is that I’d stay a couple extra days, they’d put that in, I’d be in recovery for that for a bit, and still be home before the end of the week if there weren’t complications. If I need a regular pacemaker, we’d be looking at a bigger surgery down the line that my cardiologist stated would be “a much bigger undertaking,” and frankly, I am not even entertaining that possibility.

So, full ablation, with leadless pacemaker if ABSOLUTELY necessary, or bust, as I see it.

I feel okay physically tonight. Being off some of my meds has caused a headache. I also have some stomach upset. I don’t know if that’s due to med changes, what I’ve eaten, anxiety, or in response to the headache, but it’s pissing me right off. Ha! I’m also fatigued but that has been the norm for quite a while.

People have asked today about my mental health and honestly I just want this over with. I think my chaotic experience with the cardioversion has made me feel like this will inevitably be chaotic and while my brain knows practically that that is probably incorrect, can’t really kill my nervous system’s reaction to that fear. So. To combat some of that, I’ve drawn up a “care plan” for my nurses, etc. to hopefully prevent some of the miscommunication that happened during my last visit.

My support team has shown up. I am smothered and covered in prayers and offers of help, and my family (especially Andy and my mom) have worked to make sure I come home to clean home with all the chores done and don’t have to do much of anything to keep the household going.

We still have Sparkle, and I’ve let everyone know that will be a situation that I deal with after I get home and I’m feeling 100%. She’s going to need to go to events and maybe go to some dog-friendly places around town and I can’t do that right now and I’m too in love with her to let anyone else do it (#typea).

So that’s where I’m at. There is SO MUCH I want to do. Shit I’ve been trying to do for two years, or longer than that. Lately, I find myself more and more wondering what would happen if I woke up one morning and just got on a plane to Scotland and started over. Is this crazy talk? Probably. Is it nice to think about a different reality where I could be an expat in a gorgeous country with nothing to do but enjoy it? Yep.

There are some days my only thought is burning it all down.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for loving me. I’ll see you on the other side.