Dad's Surgery

So my Dad is 65 years old and just retired this year. For most of his life he has been healthy. He has had a few health problems but not many. So when his doctor told him he had arrhythmia he was shocked. Of course the doctor was shocked to hear that his dad died from a stroke and wasn't sure why my dad wasn't being monitored more closely throughout his life. Well that doubled his chances for a heart attack and stroke. So they did a bunch of tests. His MRI came back with not so good news. His heart was enlarged. They put him on a blood thinner to help and then gave him options. My parents chose to have an ablation.
His surgery yesterday went well and had no complications. They were able to fix the arrhythmia and solve some other issues. He is home recovering right now. It will take a while to recover.
The next step is too control it with diet and exercise.

I love my dad and am glad everything went all right.
He is an amazing man!!!

Carrie

P.S. Since I didn't know some of these definitions I have included them in this blog.

Cardiac dysrhythmia (also known as arrhythmia) is a term for any of a large and heterogeneous group of conditions in which there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart. The heart beat may be too fast or too slow, and may be regular or irregular.

Catheter ablation is a procedure used to selectively destroy areas of the heart that are causing a heart rhythm problem. During this procedure, thin, flexible wires are inserted into a blood vessel in the thigh, groin, neck, or elbow and threaded up through the blood vessel and into the heart under X-ray guidance. The wires allow the doctor to record the electrical activity of your heart and determine what kind of heart rhythm problem you have.

Then, your doctor will find the tiny areas that are causing the rhythm problem. The wires are used to send energy to those areas in the heart. This energy is in the form of heat or freezing cold. The heat or cold destroys, or ablates, the heart tissue. Destroying this tissue can cure your heart rhythm problem.

Catheter ablation can be called different names based on the type of energy used to create the heat or cold. If heat from radio waves is used, it is called radiofrequency catheter ablation. If cold temperatures are used, it is called cryoablation.

Catheter ablation is done in a hospital where the person can be carefully monitored. The procedure is done with an electrophysiology (EP) study, which can identify specific areas of heart tissue where the fast heart rate may start or where abnormal electrical pathways are located inside or outside the atrioventricular (AV) node. This allows doctors to pinpoint exactly what tiny area of heart muscle to destroy.

A local anesthetic is used at the site where the catheter is inserted. The person usually stays awake during the procedure but may be sedated.