Zebra
Part One: Onset
This is the first in a series of posts about Emily and the past month of her life. It may take me a while to post all of them because we are very much still in the midst of the issue. In fact, I am writing this from a hospital room in Richmond Virginia where she has been admitted for the second time.
There is nothing particularly uplifting or inspiring about this story. Much like any real story, it lives in the grey part, between hope and disillusion. I am presenting it here because many of our friends read this blog and I want to keep a record of what has happened up to this point as well as provide an insight for those concerned.
On Wednesday, April 1st I got a call from Emily around lunch time. This wasn’t strange. I was in Hampton Virginia on business and she generally checks up with me to see how the trip’s going. What was strange was the male voice on the other end.
“Is this Jeff?”
“…Yeah.”
“Emily is in the ER. Her heart rate shot up and they’re having a hard time getting it under control. She’s having trouble breathing. You should come down here.”
“If this is an April fools day joke, it isn’t funny.”
“I assure you, this is not a joke.”
For those of you that have never gotten a call like that, consider yourself fortunate. The worst sorts of thoughts start crowding your reason. When you’re an hour away, however, you don’t have much time to think. You have to get in the car.
“I’ll be there in 45.”
I threw all my stuff in my bag and got in the car. Fact: 45 minutes affords you time to render multiple nightmare scenarios, even at 95 miles per hour. It is a long fucking time to know nothing.
When I got to the hospital they immediately let me back. This was a good sign. It meant that she was conscious and able to see people.
They let me behind the curtain. She looked pale and scared. The vitals monitor was reading a heart rate of 130 (for reference, an average heart rate right is usually around 70), and they had just pushed 18 milligrams of Adenosine.
Adenosine is a drug that acts like a reset button for your heart. It does the following two things:
- Pauses your heart and starts it again at a lower rate
- Causes the patient to become overwhelmed with the fear of their own imminent death (this is an actual side effect of the drug).
Seven doctors and assorted staff surrounded her, paddles ready. But the Adenosine didn’t work. As she told me what had transpired so far, I glanced back and forth at the monitor. Her heart rate was climbing.
135.
145.
155.
When it hit 160 she started to shake. Her blood pressure dropped. An alarm went off. The staff rushed in and tried to calm her down. They pushed Adivan (an anxiety reducing drug) into her IV. She wanted to know her vitals and kept asking for a beta blocker. They wouldn’t give her one. After a tense ten minutes, the anti-anxiety drug started to work. Eventually her heart rate fell back down to 125.
All I could do was hold her hand. It was a terrible, incapable feeling.
The ER doctor came in and tried to reassure her that everything was fine. They said she had suffered supraventricular tachycardia. It was common. It was probably from dehydration, stress and caffeine. It would be over soon. Obviously, Emily (having just experienced the side effect of Adenosine) was not convinced.
It looked like they were going to order an echocardiogram and observe her overnight. They wheeled her back into a semi-private room and hooked her up to another machine that blipped and beeped throughout the afternoon. While her blood pressure had stabilized, her heart rate was still in the 120’s. Tachycardia was only supposed to last a few hours.
The alarms that night were a constant reminder that she wasn’t out of the woods. They alternated between “MISSED BEAT”, “HIGH HR” and “PAIR PVC” in a yellow banner across the top of the display. The nurses would came in every hour and offered blankets and ice chips, when she really needed an echo and a beta blocker.
Needless to say, it was a long night, and the beginning of life-changing ordeal.
