After Cardioversion: Recovery Revelations

Looking back on the eleven days since my cardioversion procedure, I decided to write down my experiences. Granted, it was not a normal recovery, but I also have a complicated and unique cardiac medical history, as many people do with CVD (cardiovascular disease). So, without further ado, here are my thoughts.

As one can imagine, I was eager to return to my old self and be able to think, speak, write, and move easily again. All of which would be afforded to me once the AFib resolved itself.

So, when I went to the hospital, I thought I knew what to expect — visions of taking calming medicine, lying down in a loose gown under a freshly warmed blanket, and waking up feeling like a million bucks.

And to some degree. Yes, that is what happened.

Although this time, I had the procedure, and for some reason or another, it was without the prior calming medication. So I was very much awake when the wires and patches were being attached, and I was told to bite down on a large plastic mouth guard for the thoracic echocardiogram they would do before the actual cardioversion, just to make sure my heart didn’t have any hidden problems that were not visible during the traditional outside-body echo a few days prior.

Rather unnerving, to be honest.

But when I woke up, my doctor immediately asked how I felt, and I knew the AFib was gone. My thoughts when I had AFib were very much like a broken projector of a running horse with some pictures missing and running increasingly in slower and slower motion. But now, it was like all the pieces had been fixed, and it was complete. Every stride hit without a hitch. Every thought was clear, and I was awake and alert for the first time in nearly a year.

It was only in the next few days that the strong hospital medicine wore off and my muscles began to become sore and achy, but that is to be expected when one has been electrocuted, even for medical purposes. A simple Tylenol and moving a little cautiously were enough for me to handle it.

Since my procedure was in the very early morning, I went home with my family and took a brief nap. However, my parents at the time were sick with RSV. I also had the illness, but recovered sooner, which allowed me to have the procedure in the first place. Unfortunately, their recovery was taking a bit longer. However, they had an obligation to go on a trip the next day, and I wanted to help however I could… with a little incentive to prove to myself that I could, after almost a year of being physically and mentally unable to do so due to lack of potassium for four months, which led to my AFib for four and a half months.

So, rather than go to bed like any sane person, I helped the family pack for the trip and to prepare for my cousin’s arrival, as she would be traveling with them. I just wanted to help and be “useful.”

But that concept of usefulness being directly connected to health in itself is somewhat of a problematic notion for people with complex congenital heart disease (CCHD). No matter how “healthy” we can seem to be, the concept of presumed and visible “health” for people with healthy hearts is different than those with congenitally malformed ones.

That’s why, in addition to this, my family assumed that because the AFib was gone, I was automatically 'healthy' again. So, I was also given a list of chores, including cleaning the office, my room, and my bathroom, among other things, even though I had recently celebrated my thirty-fifth birthday. Naturally, I was not against helping, but the timing was dangerous and the assumption that I needed a list of tasks spoke volumes,

Three things are problematic here. The first was that I had just had my heart shocked back into shape that morning, and it would take at least a few days to even itself out, especially since it had been out of sync for 4.5 months. The second was that everyone has always treated me like the “problem” of my health, and the inconvenience it caused was assumed to have been solved in an instant. Therefore, my inability to 'get better' from my critical, complex congenital illness was always seen as willful stubbornness rather than medical reality. And the third is that, because of conditioning, I fell in line like a good little soldier and followed orders despite the potential risks of pushing too hard after this or any cardiovascular procedure.

So, without thinking, I began doing all these assigned tasks because I had been conditioned to believe my whole life that the comfort of others came before my health. Now, this was ingrained in me because, growing up, maintaining others' comfort and emotional well-being was necessary for me to preserve my own physical health, as these two things were inseparable.

This is called parentification with simultaneous infantilization. This means that I emotionally take care of them while they treat me like a child (a sick child) in order to preserve this established comfort cycle, which sometimes, perhaps subconsciously, leads them to ignore my health problems entirely. Naturally, this is under the assumption that I’m lying, making it up, or just naturally sick and, therefore, a lost cause.

However, more often than not, especially these last five years, this has come at the cost of my health or actively endangered it, leading to situations that caused this cardioversion in the first place.

Therefore, since I was no longer in active AFib, I could return to my role that I was negligent about before and always had been by default due to my illness.

Theoretically, I could have said no and just gone back to bed to preserve myself and my newly restored health. However, if anyone has ever experienced parentification, infantilization, medical abuse or medical gaslighting, it is nearly impossible to do so especially in a weakened state because there is just a little spark in the back of the mind that says, “I’m better now so I can prove I am wantable if I just do what they ask this time… because I am inherently and incurably the one at fault for my illness and they are not. They are my saviors as they are healthy and correct, and I just need to prove that I am worthy of their sacrifices.” This is not an uncommon thought for people who have had to deal with abuse.

So, in this situation, I no longer had AFib and therefore, no longer had any “excuse,” which my illness was treated as for as long as I can remember. The symptoms of my condition were something I was assumed to have made up until I could prove otherwise, labeling me a liar by nature, which, I can assure you, I am not. However, this “proving” often required a sharp and immediate decline in my health due to an issue that could have been prevented if anyone had believed me in the first place.

My estranged aunt once unintentionally admitted to and explained this dynamic to me when I was trying to tell her about my work and the concept of the Evertickingheart and how I was trying to raise awareness and understanding for people with heart problems. She bristled and said, clear as a bell, “Your physical health is equal to or less than everyone else’s mental health!” before storming off. Granted, she is a strange woman, but in this case, very insightful.

What her words meant is that my physical health (meaning my heart condition and survival) should be given an equal or lesser seat to everyone else’s mental health, as if it were inherently my job to preserve their feelings about my illness and my own impending doom. But, ironically, this demise from a “childhood illness” is taking about thirty-five years longer than expected. Everyone else was frozen in a perpetual state of waiting for my illness to finish me off, while simultaneously expecting me to prove my worth by pretending I never had a heart condition — as if I could be 'fixed' if I only tried harder.

However, this dynamic has lasted for thirty-five years. That’s not an extended illness, that’s a life. Yet, with many families of kids with congenital heart disease, it is difficult to discern the difference between the illness and the child, especially as they grow older.

In my personal case, this saying my aunt nonchalantly threw in my face accurately and articulately connected the thread of my entire social circle of friends and family to my illness, and it was a rude awakening, but also clarifying to hear it spoken so… obviously.

An unspoken truth with unintended consequences.

So, with all that in mind, when recovering from my cardioversion, I did what I was told and went up and down and up and down the stairs while carrying stuff, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned up my office, and just kept trudging along because to do otherwise would make me seem weak or at least weaker than them and, in this dynamic, their mental health and comfort came before the preservation of my newly regained physical health.

This is why, at dinner with my parents and my cousin, I felt a cold wave of exhaustion and brain fog wash over me. I lacked the strength to be conversational, to explain the situation, and to be an active participant in the evening’s affairs. So, I kept quiet throughout the meal, even though I had a Valkyrie's strength that morning.

When we got home, I, perhaps in a state of denial, continued to go up and down the stairs with noticeably more difficulty than before. I took deep, heaving gasps just from walking down the hall, as if I had aged many decades in a very short time.

Out of caution, I took out my iWatch and checked the pulse and the portable ECG, which showed that I was in AFib. I told my family and called the doctor. However, only rest and lying low were suggested.

The reason this happened and why rest is so highly recommended is that a cardioversion basically shocks your heart to get it back in rhythm. As I understand it from my doctor's advice, this is done to reeducate the muscle back to its original, ordinary, and effective tempo. However, if you push yourself too hard, like walking up and down stairs over and over and doing chores, it can confuse the heart and compromise the results of the procedure. Now, sometimes during the recovery process, the heart returns to a normal rhythm on its own, but the goal is for it to always return to a normal rhythm and to prevent it from slipping into a consistent arrhythmia or AFib.

Luckily, this AFib phase didn’t last long, and it sorted itself out relatively quickly. After that, when my family left on their trip, I took the next ten days to rest and recuperate.

Even today, 11 days after my cardioversion, my family tried to make me go through the clothes that were saturated with the sewer gas and mold that made me sick in the first place. This was done in an attempt to prove me wrong and that my AFib and the rest of my symptoms were purely psychological, as is their stance on this subject. While dangerous and disturbing, this was not done without logic, for it was part of a continued, desperate effort to avoid even the notion of guilt for ignoring me and my deteriorating situation for years, especially when there was a cause, one which I told them over and over through panting, poisoned breaths. So, Mom called me downstairs and brought me my favorite coat, but it was still saturated, and I coughed and couldn’t breathe while I stepped away, and Mom said, “Oh, come on! You’re making it up! You are so stubborn! Can’t you even entertain the idea that it’s just in your head! It’s psychological, and you know it!” I said I would not risk my health anymore, and she walked away, saying I was ungrateful and slammed the door.

Now, why did I tell you all this?

After any cardiac procedure, it is imperative to take your doctor’s post-procedural instructions as close to gospel. No matter what outside influences or pressures you face, your recovery is the most important thing to your medical team, as it should be to you, too. That is why it is so important, even with a relatively non-invasive procedure like cardioversion, not to underestimate it or its recovery time.

If you have CVD or CHD and have had cardioversion, don’t underestimate the procedure. Yes, it is commonly done, but it is nevertheless a cardiovascular procedure and needs to be treated as such. Furthermore, the recovery process, if you can rely on family and friends, is a wonderful and treasurable thing. Not everyone has reliable support. I learned the hard way that even a well-meaning family can endanger your recovery.

Furthermore, a cardioversion is only a temporary fix for AFib. An ablation is permanent. So, now that I have had a cardioversion, I have no intention of tipping the scales out of my favor to please others.

What do you think? Did you find this helpful? Have you ever felt pressured to push yourself too soon after a procedure?

Comment below.

Tune in next Monday and Friday for more! I will be writing more now that I’m finally feeling better, so I’m getting a new, more frequent schedule.

Keep ticking, everybody!

P.S. Are there any aspects of CVD health or pacemakers you’d like to know more about?

Feel free to email me at:

blairmueller28@gmail.com

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