I had just had surgery performed on my right heel in an effort to relieve the pain I’d been experiencing for that past year and a half. It had taken all of twenty minutes, during which time I’d been knocked out. My son Jason was sitting next to me expressly for the purpose of listening to what the doctor had to say after the anesthesia wore off since I never seem to get things clearly after being under.
“I…you…what?” I articulated.
“You have atrial flutter and your heart rate was only 20 beats per minute while I was performing surgery. You need to go see a cardiologist next door…RIGHT NOW!”
Well…I wasn’t arguing, though I did explain that I’d had an unusual heart beat most of my life and always been told it was functional and not to worry. It seems to skip beats at rest, but beats steadily when I’m exercising. The doctors in the emergency room had noted the same concerns when I’d been there two summers ago for my kidney stones.
“This is something different,” he said and something I would hear again when I did meet with the cardiologist thirty minutes later.
“You have atrial flutter, which means that the electrical impulse that should move across the heart in a straight line to initiate the contraction of the heart, is bouncing back and forth in your right atrium and causing this ‘flutter’,” he explained after reviewing my ECG strips and looking at the ultrasound of my heart. “I’m not overly concerned and I’ll tell you why.”
He had asked me a series of questions, the most important being was I getting dizzy and did I feel fatigued. I’d answered ‘no’ to both of these, which made him happy.
“Look…with flutter, blood pools in the right atrium and has a greater propensity to clot. Clots break free and if they end up in your brain, you have a stroke. That’s bad. If you were like almost all of the other people in my waiting room – had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, were out of shape, dizzy or tired, I’d be much more worried and we’d be talking about blood thinners or pacemakers. As it stands, I want you to start taking an aspirin a day to help thin your blood. You are at an increased risk for a stroke and so you and I are going to see each other from time to time.”
He also described a more serious concern – the slightly enlarged condition of my aorta. “I can only see the upper end as it leaves the ventricle with an ultrasound, so I want you back here in 90 days for a CAT scan so I can be sure it’s not worse. I don’t think it is and it’s only slightly enlarged, but the aorta is like a balloon. Stretch it out like high blood pressure will and eventually it breaks. If it does, you die. End of story,” he said.
We talked for a while longer about my activity level, which impressed him and gave him hope that I would be fine. “You seem to take good care of yourself, but you need me to monitor this,” he concluded. He had my full attention.
That was thirty days ago. I’ve been taking my aspirin daily with dinner, but am just now getting back to exercising. I have been paying closer attention to my heart beating and I have noticed some dizziness, but that could be the result of my looking for it. Low blood pressure and resting heart rates can lead to feelings of dizziness when you move from a lying or sitting position to a standing one. The blood needs to catch up with the move and get it to your head so you don’t pass out.
I did another 11,000+ steps on the job and then hurried home for a bike ride. It would be my first outdoor ride since the surgery and I was anxious to see if my heel would be affected. I rode off feeling good, but quickly noticed a slight twinge in the right heel, which I elected to ignore. Ninety minutes later and after climbing a couple of hills, I was pain free and feeling quite giddy about having ridden. I went to dinner with Heidi in Akron and didn’t get home for some icing until after nine, but there was limited soreness though walking to and from the restaurant had been slow going.
Recovery continues and like all people in their sixties, new physical challenges will arise. I know that my body wants to slow some, but if I give into that urge, I’ll have that much more trouble getting it going again. The more we do, the more we can do. I have so much more I want to get done and so I will push on.
Bike duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 1250.
Bonus: 13,000 steps.
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