Bad Ablation- Out of Body experience, 10 days at Hahnemann

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Posted by Pete Reed on January 27, 2004 at 15:31:52:

Okay, I'll start with my out of body thing. I remember being in my gown, sliding down a huge blood vessel. The blood vessel was like a waterslide. The walls of the blood vessel were transparent, and they would change colors. I would be in a red area, then maroon, then orange. On the other side of the vessel wall, I could see an bright light. It was the most intense dream I have ever experienced.
When I woke up after seeing the priest, I was in CT-ICU. I don't remember too much here, as I was on so many drugs and painkillers. I was like a lab rat. So many doctors would come by to see how I was doing. I remember waking up one time with about 20 doctors and probably some students standing around my bed. Dr. Maleki was among them, and I remember saying to her "What did you do to me?" I don't think that I was that polite, but you get the point. I remember other members of Dr. Maleki's EP group stopping by. I received the same answer over and over again, that no one could figure out what went wrong, but that I was okay now. My afib was out of control. My wife remembers it going over 200 beats per minute. I was placed on IV Amiodorone. This was really weird, because when I would go into afib, I could actually feel a shock to my heart. I would tell the nurse or doctor when I felt the shock, and a few seconds later, I would be converted back to normal rhythm. Everyone seemed amazed. It was probably two days after the PVI that I finally figured out what had happened. I often heard nurses saying that "he doesn't know what happened yet". On the second day, they had me up walking with a walker. Shortly after my walk, which was in the afternoon, I was transferred to CCU, which is another word for hell. In CCU, I was strapped to a monitor which was on the wall behind me. I was not allowed to get up for several days. Bedpans and catheters were how I relieved myself. The food was awful. I would get nauseated just smelling the cart at the end on the hall. My room was quite large. There were four patient rooms in each suite separated by sliding glass doors. In the center on the suite was a monitoring station. Each nurse was responsible for two patients. My day nurses were great, all females. I had the same one on four days. My night nurse was a male. This all happened during the blizzard last year, so my night nurse volunteered to stay at the hospital for extra pay. I had him every night while in CCU. From midnight until 6:00
AM, I was in misery. Usually, I received a sleeping pill and pain pills at midnight. Every hour after that, I would get new IV's, tests, drugs, and the ultimate, Liquid potassium and magnesium pills that would choke a horse. My entire stay in CCU I had diarrhea, so magnesium and potassium would go to unsafe levels. But the meds would then, in turn, give me more diarrhea. This never got corrected while I was at Hahnemann. I had to take this wonderful cocktail for about a month after I went home.
After a few days, I was allowed to get up to go to the bathroom. About 10 feet from the bed was a sink, which had a pull out cabinet containing a toilet. I was not able to wipe myself, which was an issue for the nurses, especially the night nurse. He would escort me to the toilet, but would let me sit their for 30-45 minutes, often while he went for a smoke break. If I rang for him to come, it was always an effort. I tried a couple of times to wipe, but my back would go into spasms from a recent car accident, so everytime was a fight with this guy. As I told you, all night long he'd have me up. My veins had been stuck so many times, that it became an effort to find a spot. At 6:00 AM sharp, the first doctor would arrive, and by 9:00 AM, I would normally have been seen by at least five doctors, the EKG team, a portable chest x-ray, etc.
Breakfast would come around 8:00 AM. This was the only meal that I could get down, usually a yogurt and some cereal. My wife, an RN herself, would usually come by around 10:00 AM and stay until 8:00 PM. She would work it out with the day nurses to keep my door shut, so that I could get some sleep. I was in CCU for 7 days. At some point I was pretty much off of the IV's, and my veins were shot anyway. Some rookie foreign doctor came into my room, and demanded that I have IV lines set up, in case they needed them. He wanted to enter the lines into my neck and/or my ankles. My wife told him no. He then said that I had no choice but to have a central line run. Again, my wife told him no. The doctor left the room in a huff. My wife later told the day nurse what had transpired. The nurse went ballistic. She said, "I told him not to do that!" My wife questioned why I wasn't up walking around, and she was told that I had to stay hooked up to the monitor, which had about a ten foot cord. Later in the week, I was encouraged to sit in a lounge chair by the bed, but I always needed help to do this, because of the lines.
Dr. Malecki came by 7 days after the procedure. She told me what had happened was unfortunate. However, she said that I was young and strong, and that when I recovered that I should have another ablation, although she wouldn't do it. I felt like...well, use your imagination. My last day in CCU, I had just had breakfast and my day nurse was on board. I was happy. Dr. Maleki came by and apparently was stunned that I was still in CCU. She spoke to me for about 10 minutes while I ate, without mentioning the above. After she left, my nurse came in to tell me that I was moving to another ward, telemetry, which is where my wife thought that I should have been days earlier. In this ward, I was placed on a portable monitor, and I was told to start walking around. Life was getting better. I stayed in this ward for two days. I was able to shower, but I needed help to dry. The food was the same, and I still couldn't eat it. The last night, they messed up the food order, so the clerk asked me what I wanted. I told her sugar cookies and hot tea. She said okay. It was my best meal at Hahnemann. My wife had asked one of the EP doctors on Thursday 2/20, if I could go home the next day. I was scheduled to stay until Monday. He told her he didn't see why not. Friday came and confusion reigned. My hemoglobin was low. I had received a transfusion during the emergency setting, but now they wanted to give me another to get levels up. Doctors and nurses were fighting each other for sign off rights. I was to get a shower and get changed, but the nurse wouldn't come to my room to take me off the monitor. Finally, my wife went to the monitoring room and told the attendant that my room's monitor was being disconnected. I was told that I needed to take iron at home to raise the hemoglobin level. Finally, a doctor signed me out.
Remember, I haven't been walking except for the last day or so. My wife had to walk me to the elevator, we decended 21 floors to the lobby, and I walked to the front door while she went for the car. No hospital escort. Amazing! It took about twenty minutes to get the car. I remember stepping out of the front door. Cigarette butts were everywhere. It was a grey, dingy, cold day in Philadelphia that day. I remember that the air smelled so good! I was going home! I'll post part three later.
Pete Reed

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