Heart surgery for me

It's not your lungs this time, it's your heart that holds your fate -- "For You," Bruce Springsteen

Thinking about it logically, I knew an ablation wouldn't be a simple out-patient procedure with just local anesthetic. I mean, it's your heart they are going to be working on and they go up through your groin.


Hearing that it was a three-hour procedure requiring full anesthesia and hospitalization, though, just about killed me.

I saw the heart rhythm specialist today, and he had two options. The ablation or just stay on the amiodarone and monitor me for problems.

He said he is confident he can do the ablation (would you want a doctor who said he wasn't?) . His only concern is the anesthesia. Friedreich's patients are touchy about anesthesia. I'd also have to take blood thinner in the weeks before. My sister told him this is iffy because I fall regularly. He said, Don't fall.

I'll get right on that after I wish away my Afib. He was joking, of course, but that kind of joke drives me crazy.

He didn't seem to think my AFib was that bad and the amiodarone seems to be working, so he said I could just stay on that and monitor for side efects. Other cardiologists I saw in the hospital said amioderone is bad long term.

I told him I'd stay on the amiodarone. Mom and my sister probably disagreed -- they actually read all its side effects -- but they didn't say anything.

Then I asked my neurologist. He voted for ablation. I trust him, so it seems like heart surgery is in my future, and yes, I know it isn't really surgery, but I feel bad enough, it might as well be.