u/WithMeDoctorWu

I've experienced intermittent arrhythmia since the teen years. Up till about age 40 the episodes were always in the form of tachycardia; after age 40 they were always a-fib. There was no transition period where it was sometimes one and sometimes the other, rather it was like one day my heart lost the ability to stay in sync when the rogue signals took control.

Episodes would last anywhere from a few seconds to 48 hours. They were rare enough, and I tolerated them well enough, that I just kinda lived with it until around age 50 when a cardiologist started me on metoprolol. After I complained of lethargy I was switched to diltiazem, and that helped for a few years until it too seemed to be dragging me down. But by then I'd lost a good bit of weight and wondered whether it might help reduce the afib, so with the cardiologist's blessing I discontinued the med and crossed my fingers.

There were a few weeks where I thought things were looking up, I could exercise easily for the first time in years. It felt great. And then the issue suddently got all up in my grille, two very uncomfortable episodes the same weekend and the second one wouldn't resolve on its own. I waited until the 60 hour point then went in; the cardiologist at first wanted me to wait longer because it was still likely to resolve, but my tolerance just wasn't there. I was having trouble concentrating, trouble standing from a sitting position, even getting woozy just from looking down and then up. They did a cardioversion the same afternoon and when the sedation wore off, it was like nothing had ever been wrong. Full oxygen to the brainpan, easy breathing, complete relief.

The plan now is to get in line for an ablation, or a "first ablation" possibly. That might be a few months in the future because of backlogs in the places I can get into with my insurance. In the meantime they got me started taking amiodarone in hopes of preventing a repeat episode, and that seems to work really well. Too bad it's not safe to take it for years on end. There still seems to be a palpitation once in a while, but whenever I check my resting pulse now it's somewhere in the high fifties and reassuringly steady.

I'm just posting this to share the experience so far; not looking for any particular advice, though I'd be interested to hear from others who are or have been on a similar path.

Movie dialog, from The Man With Two Brains:
Dr. Hfuhruhurr: There's only one other person I'd trust to perform this operation -- Beckerman.
Dr. Brandon: Well, Dr. Beckerman was murdered in Europe, you know that.
Dr. Hfuhruhurr: Exactly, not only is he dead, he's six thousand miles away!

Marketing slogan for classic dice game Cosmic Wimpout:
It's more than an experience, it's a game!

From a restaurant sketch by Paul Reiser (probably not exact words, this is from distant memory):
Diner: What are the frog legs like?
Waiter: You ever had really good chicken?
Diner: Yeah...
Waiter: They're like that, only not as good.

---

I wouldn't call it anti-humor in the usual sense. It subverts your expectation about magnitude or extent by exchanging the smaller or less emphatic thing for the larger or more emphatic thing. I guess it's related to reductio ad absurdum but is almost the opposite; it keeps stepping back in the wrong direction from the point being made.

I started donating rather late, in my 60s, when hearing about COVID-related shortages. Last week my cardiologist started me on blood thinners, and it's likely I will be on them the rest of my life. Just checked the Red Cross eligibility rules and it looks like I'm done.

Wish I'd started earlier. I got a little past the two gallon point and can only trust some people were helped by it.

Anybody reading this who is on the fence, get out there and donate if you are able. The world is messed up every which way but here's something good you can do that costs only time and some temporary discomfort. You have my permission to indulge in an extra bag of tiny cookies afterward.