Went backpacking

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Posted by Ken Willis on July 12, 2002 at 02:04:50:

Today it's been 7 weeks since my maze surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, and I'm very pleased by how well things are going. It's not as if everything is perfect and I'm back to normal, but all trends are very positive. I'd like to relate my most recent experience.

My wife and I just got back from our first post-maze backpack trip (we'd been day-hiking several times). We both carried almost a third of our weight (100 and 150 lbs., respectively), which was a lot more than we needed, but neither of us suffered. The first day (less than 3 hours, including lunch, actually) we covered a little over 5 miles and gained a little under 2000 vertical feet. We stopped so that we didn't have to camp in the snow and would have a great view. It was so good to get out and camp in the wilderness again after the surgery! It was visions of doing this type of thing that helped sustain me in the hospital and beyond. The second day we continued up until we decided not to try to mess with a stream crossing that posed a nasty combination of adversities, but we still got in about 7 miles round-trip, quite a bit on snow, and a 1200 foot gain, which was enough abuse for our aging bodies still not broken in to mountain travel this season. The scenery was truly inspiring.

When I first started experiencing arrhythmia about 17 years ago (first PACs, later afib), it occured regularly after a day of exertion in the mountains. I finally gave up going out after a backcountry ski day trip this past February, because it was clear that nothing (medicine, my December ablation) would deter afibs after an outing. And they'd come with a real vengeance and last 12-18 hours. It was miserable, so to save myself that misery I stopped doing what I really loved doing. I'd still get afibs about 3 times a week, but not as severely as after a day of exertion.

Dr. McCarthy did my surgery on May 23rd, and for the first 16 days I had no arrhythmia. Then I got afibs and went on rhythmol and coumadin. The afibs usually mutated into flutter and then evaporated when I started moving around. Before the maze I could convert to NSR with serious exercise, but post-maze and -rhythmol, it took little exertion to do the trick and the episodes got shorter and less frequent. But the true test would be to go hiking.

The first night of our hike I started getting PACs and very short runs of something I couldn't identify (maybe they were still PACs; I just don't know) which previously had always immediately thrown me into afib. This time after bursts of a second to maybe 10 or so seconds out of rhythm, every time my heart just plugged back into NSR. I had scores of these bursts for about an hour- almost every one of them formerly would have initiated afibs- until they suddenly stopped, and I haven't had anything but NSR since. It was a tremendously encouraging experience to think that my reconditioned heart might be starting to be able to hold off afibs/flutter even after hiking. My next test will be to go longer distance/duration to see if this is really true. At this point I'm very elated and optimistic.

I know that the stories posted here strongly influenced me to have the maze done, and I wanted to inform those who might be considering the procedure, or even someone who has had a maze but is at a different stage of recovery, of my real-life experience. If there is one thing I have learned from this site, it's that not everyone responds the same to maze surgery, so it's useful to share stories to give readers a balanced view.


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