Ventricular Tachycardia

Patrick was shocked nine times on Friday, December 6, 2019. Nine. I was stunned when he told me that. I was present for at least one of them, and it's scary. He doesn't always feel them because some can be small. Sometimes he feels them coming and can warn me. They are like earthquakes - you know we're due for one but you don't know if it will shake the water in your glass or send your house sliding off its foundation. That's what happened Friday. He said my name and just seconds later he was growling and grunting, his lungs no longer drawing in air as he went into v-tach and his defibrillator did it's job. You can bet your butt I was slapping his face and calling his name, waiting for him to come out of it. Had it gone on longer than the 8 or so seconds he was under I would have started CPR. Almost as soon as he came out of it he told me to call 9-1-1. (On a side note - we don't always call 9-1-1 because he is admitted to the ER, they run some tests, tell him, "Your defibrillator did its job," and then they send him home. But Friday's shock was a bad one.) When a heart has a heart attack, what is left behind is often damaged tissue. The rhythmic beating of the heart is created by electrical signals that course through the heart, and when these electrical signals encounter damaged tissue they can scatter or over fire, which can send Patrick into v-tach. Patrick's implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) will shock his heart so it returns to normal rhythm, but too many shocks can also damage the heart. The procedure Ventricular Tachycardia Ablasion destroys the damaged heart tissue or circles the damaged area, causing scar tissue. This prevents electrical signals from passing through, decreasing the number of v-tach episodes that require shocks. Scar tissue doesn't conduct electrical signals. But the dangers of ablation are what concerns us - the risk of stroke. In Patrick's case he has multiple damaged areas on his heart that would require ablation. Remember when I spoke about the area to which the cardiologists connected that 6th graph, resulting in a clogged graph? That is just one of the areas of his heart that is damaged beyond repair. Multiple ablations on these areas would mean an even higher risk of stroke. His cardiologist has recommended skipping ablation for this reason and getting on the transplant list. Knowing the normal options open to patients aren't all open to him has been a tough pill to swallow. It says to us that his heart isn't just in poor shape. It truly is dying. It says they don't want to risk killing him on the operating table, and that skipping to just taking out the bad and replacing it with new is the better option. I jokingly ask, "Why couldn't it have been your gall bladder?" But the reality is I pray every night for that transplant packet to get to us fast. The reality is I take the baby monitor out of our bedroom and put it on the coffee table upstairs, so when I'm downstairs he won't have to yell for me or dial my number on his phone if he feels a shock coming. The reality is I lay awake at night wondering if I'm going to wake up to him cold and stiff. The reality is I wonder if I'm going to lose my best friend. It feels like we are walking on thin ice. That the string tethering Patrick to this life is thin and fraying, fragile enough that any wrong move could snap it and he'll be gone. You wouldn't know it by looking at him. He's still him. He's still telling the store employees that I'm shoplifting because it makes him laugh. He's still sharing his bodily functions with the girls even though it grosses them out. He's still trying his best to make everyone around him as happy as he appears to be. But on the inside he's scared. We're scared. Honestly - he's acting out like a child would, being a brat and living up to his childhood nickname Pat The Brat because it keeps his mind off the reality of what's going on inside his rib cage. I think about all the memes I see that say, "Be kind. You don't know what others are going through," and the ones that talk about how smiles can be a shield people hide behind. Those memes are hitting home today. We're still here. Still trucking. But give Patrick a hug the next time you see him. Hug that brat until he's uncomfortable. Get in his bubble. You know why. I don't have to tell you.