Ventricular Tachycardia

(Disclaimer: I was transferred to different hospitals a few times during my month-long battle with heart failure — hospitals will remain unnamed. Some of these stories are not in chronological order.)

In order to see how my heart was doing, the team decided to slowly wean me off of milrinone, which was the medicine that was helping my heart pump. Unfortunately, with every slight wean, I would get sicker than before. My cardiac index would go all the way back down to “Almost Death” level, and I would have trouble breathing. 

When they increased my milrinone back up, I started having bouts of “ventricular tachycardia.” We tried to explain to my parents that this was an abnormal (and dangerous) heart rhythm.

“Is this like when they shock patients in movies?” Dad asked.

Without having to go into the whole “pulse vs. no pulse,” “stable vs. unstable” explanation, I just said, “Yes.”

“No. You don’t have that.”

So, there was that. 

Sometimes, throughout my hospitalization, I would get pacer pads placed on my chest before sleeping (the ones that they use in movies to shock patients). I didn’t want my parents seeing this, so I figured out a way to use two gowns to cover up the stickers on my chest. There’s a lot you start doing in these situations so that those around you don’t feel bad for you (you’ll see what I mean).

One night, I was started on intravenous amiodarone, a medication that would help temporarily suppress these abnormal rhythms, which were becoming more and more regular.

I woke up at 2am and began vomiting profusely— on my bed, on the floor, all over my beautiful hospital gown. I couldn’t find the call bell to call for help, and so I just started screaming for something to help with my vomiting. “Zofrannnnnnn!! Please!!!!” Luckily, someone heard my calls for Zofran. My wonderful nurse came in with a basin, and told me that she had to call the resident to put the order in. 

“Can you please make sure that she also orders an EKG! I don’t want to be on two QT prolonging meds at once! Tell her I have no pain! No chest pain either!” 

And then I went back to vomiting my chicken soup and chocolate pudding. The resident came to see me, listened to my lungs, sat with me for awhile until the Zofran was given. I asked her if she would call her parents in this situation and we talked about how difficult this all was for me— trying to balance being a doctor with being a patient, trying to balance how much I was hurting with how much I wanted to show that I was hurting. I also jokingly asked her if they needed help with saving any lives out there, and she jokingly replied, “We’ll come get you if anybody needs to be intubated.”

If you’re reading this some day, I appreciated that a lot. You were probably on hour 22 of 28 with no sleep, and this patient just kept throwing up and you had so many charts to sign. But you made me feel normal, and that order of Zofran was one of the best things that ever happened to me that week.

The vomiting subsided after the medicine was given. I asked my nurse if I could try to wash my hair in the shower. She said that I couldn’t because I had a Swan-Ganz catheter in my neck. It couldn’t get wet. 

After an aid helped me clean up with a new gown and fresh bed sheets, I decided that I was still going to wash my hair. First of all, it had been over 10 days since it had been washed. Second of all, there were chunks of dried vomit creeping out of the ends. I walked over to the bathroom with my portable monitor and IV pole in place, and told my heart to please not go into V-tach while I did the almost impossible. I took a comb, wet it, and ran it through my hair for a few minutes. I used hand soap to wash out anything I could. Better than nothing. My nurse walked in and asked if everything was okay by the sink. 

“Yeah just … washing my face!” Washing the hair on my head connected to my face. 

I went back to sleep for a few hours, and woke up to my family at my bedside. They said that I looked pale and asked if everything was okay. 

“I had that weird heart rhythm again so they started me on some other medicine. Made me throw up.” 

“WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL US!!” 

My mom grabbed her purse and took out a salt shaker. She proceeded to pour salt around my bed, right onto the hospital floor. “This is to ward off evil so that doesn’t happen again. You should’ve called us."

Mom, this is for vampires I think… what are you doing…

But I let her pour a little bit of salt on the floor. She then went on to tell me that I shouldn’t have washed my hair because I was going to catch a cold (don’t even ask about this myth I’ve been dealing with for 31 years). I nodded my head, and then noticed that my dad was quiet, almost in tears.

I told him not to worry about the rhythm, that it was all under control now. My aunt called my cell phone, and then she started crying because she had heard about what had happened that night. “I’m okay! Look! I’m talking! Really! Just a side effect of the drug,” I told her.

I found myself consoling those around me way more than the other way around. I was never looking for pity, but I had to tell quite a few loved ones to stop crying and that, although I wasn’t in the best shape health-wise, I was in good spirits and wouldn’t lose my positive attitude. I had to listen to people tell me things like, “Oh, you poor thing. You had your whole life ahead of you!” and “You’re such a good person and you always have the worst luck!” and “I am SO SORRY that YOU have to go through this!”

I had to take it all in. Some days were harder than others. Just a couple of those closest to me were the only ones who would hear me vent once in awhile, after my parents had left for the day. We’d laugh and cry and be angry and laugh again about the awkward things that were constantly being said to me. My dry humor would come out with comments like, “Sustained V-tach with an index of 1.3 and all the inotropes are maxed out, dudes. They may as well get Palliative WITH Transplant consulted at this point.”

Those same close friends, all with backgrounds in medicine, would sometimes get quiet after my snarky comments. Then I would tell them that I was okay, and that I would stop joking around so much.

So that’s the thing about life. These crazy things happen. You can only control your reactions and your actions around these experiences, be as strong as possible to keep fighting (but give into your weak moments too— it’s a part of the process), and accept the fact that you need to take these damn experiences and make something of them. In my opinion, there is no point in laying around and sulking all day. There is no point in letting others’ words get to you. It won’t change the situation.

Besides, I’ve always been good at consoling others.

To end this post, here’s a quote that goes with this theme— I've always been a fan of some principles of Stoicism. I don’t think Marcus Aurelius actually said this directly because he didn’t speak English, but it sums up Stoicism pretty well: