Last Saturday Cody started to notice a very different feeling with his heart. He mentioned it to me that day, saying he just "didn't feel right." After that, he never said another thing.
Monday night he had gone to bed before me and I heard him hollar at me from the bedroom. He wanted me to come in and listen to his heart. I laid my head down on his chest and immediately could tell something was not right. He said it had been doing this continuously since Saturday and he thought maybe he should go in. ya think?!? I'm not kidding, his heart was out of control!!
So I left the room, shut off the light, and soon the snoring began. I started to get nervous, so I called My Sanford Nurse to get some advice. She asked if I could tell what his heart rate was. I said, it was soo fast and irregular that there isn't anything I would even be able to count. She had me go in and do it anyway. So you can imagine, he wasn't very impressed that (#1) I woke him up and (#2) I had called the nurse. I counted right around 100 beats per minute, but I knew that was a way low estimate because those were strong beats, there was all kinds of other stuff going on in there too. She told me that if it were to get to be 130 or higher, he needs to go to the ER. In the back of my head, I knew it had to be higher than that. But I also knew I wasn't going to get him out of bed to get to the emergency room. She told me this is not something to take lightly and that in the morning he MUST call and get into the dr.
The next morning I made him an appointment in Brandon. They did an EKG and his heart rate was between 130-140. The dr. said Cody needed to see Cardiology right away, hopefully yet that day. When the nurse called over to Cardiology, they didn't even want to see him, they said he had to go straight to the emergency room.
We drove over to the ER and things moved pretty quickly when he got there. Once in the ER, his heart rate was running between 160-180 beats/minute and very irregular. (everyone is different, but we were told an average heart rate should be around 70). They started some medication to help slow his heart down. Did another EKG, a chest x-ray and labs.
They said he had Atrial Fibrillation - an electrical problem within the heart causing an irregular and often fast heart rate. The upper chambers of the heart were basically shaking, beating very chaotically and irregulary- out of coordination with the two lower chambers. This doesn't allow for efficient pumping of the blood throughout the heart, therefore blood pools within the upper chambers and can cause blood clots. Common treatment includes a cardioversion (an electrical shock) to get the heart back into a regular rhythm. But because Cody had let this go on for more than 48 hours, he was at an increased risk for blood clots. They said they would need to admit him to the heart hospital and do further testing. They don't want to shock you without looking for a clot, because if there were any clots once the heart starts beating regularly, it could push the clots right through and now be at an increased risk for stroke.
Once in the hospital they did an ECHO, which is an ultrasound of the heart, to take a closer look. Other than being out of whack, he has a nice strong, healthy heart. All of the tests came back normal, indicating that there wasn't a specific cause for this to happen. Sometimes, it just happens.
He was scheduled on Wednesday morning at 7:15 for a TEE test, putting a tube down the esophagus to get a better look at the back of the heart, looking for blood clots and if there were none, they would do the electrical shock, all while he was sedated.
But around 4:00 that morning, after the medication had gotten his heart rate slowed down, his heart flipped back into a regular rhythm all on it's own!! We were a little nervous about the treatment, so the fact that he didn't have to do it, was awesome news! Wednesday, Cody said he felt so much better. He could tell that his heart wasn't about to burst out of his chest, he didn't feel so tired or out of breath, and he was a lot cooler. His heart was no longer running a mararthon like it had been for the past four days.
We're not exactly sure why we have been put through so many trials and tribulations at our young age, but what we do know is that God is truly in control of it all.
Cody is nothing short of a miracle!!
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