Actually, the correct term is "cardiac catheter ablation," and no that is probably not spelled right. If you're anything like the average person, you may now be blinking rapidly and wondering 'what the hell is this about heart surgery, Cory?' Well, I'll give you the whole story, then.
When I was 15, I had a seizure. We went to see the neurologist, and I was put on Depakote for a year, because the normal, benign results of my tests showed quite clearly that I had an epileptic condition. I was slightly bitter about not getting my driver's license as a result of that, but I got it a year later when they realized I was OK and took me off the medication.
Two years later, on what would have been my first day of college classes, I had another seizure. Everybody freaked except me, since I was unconscious and lost an hour and a half of my memory, I think. Anyway, I went to the ER and had some tests done on me by a cardiologist, who diagnosed me with WPW, or Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, so named because three scientists put their heads together and figured out that sometimes, the heart has an extra conduction pathway. Apparently, electrical signals circumvent the normal flow and lead to a 0.03% chance of causing problems in 10% of the affected populace. This is what was going on with me.
A week at the end of September was allocated for me to go home, get settled in, and have a catheter run up through my arteries into my heart, where it would then be heated with electricity so that it burnt the extra pathway. Technically, they call it 'creating scar tissue,' which prevents electrical conduction down the extra pathway.
I did as much catch-up work as I could before the operation, so I wouldn't be too behind in my classes. I then went home via bus on the 21st of September, after my last class of that Friday.
The operation was yesterday. They put me deep under for it. I had an IV and all that business. IV drip sucks, by the way. It feels, and tastes, like a surge of formaldahyde right at the back of your throat. As a matter of fact, I puked.
I had to lay still for 6 hours after waking up. My arteries needed to heal from the holes that had been poked in them. Over those 6 hours, I slowly recovered from the anesthesia.
THEY KEPT TAKING MY #$&!ING BLOOD PRESSURE! My overnight stay at the hospital was the second time in my life I pulled an all-nighter. I'm trying to keep as many of the gory details out of this write-up as possible; suffice it to say that it was an experience I learned much from, am still recovering from, and do not care to repeat.
It's now Thursday evening. I've taken a shower and I am somewhat cleaned up. I have made it through the operation and they managed to remove the extra pathway in my heart. I will be going back to classes on Saturday.
That is all.