As if all that I laid out in the last post wasn’t enough, as the OxiClean guy would say, but wait there’s more! I had a cousin pass, and I went back to Louisiana for the funeral. Amanda had to stay behind because there was a women’s conference at the church she was leading worship for. It was a quick turnaround because I needed to return for work, so I only stayed one night.
On my way home, some frightening events transpired for Amanda and even me since I wasn’t there for her. I will not go into any details except to say that we are seeking a protective order against someone we’ve known for a long time without prior issues. There was no physical contact. This was all via text message and a phone call. Nevertheless, Amanda still fears for her safety at home, work, or anywhere around town, and for my safety because there were direct threats about me as well.
That’s as detailed as I’m going to be, but I will, however, speak to the medical implications of this. Her heart was beating a solid 140-150 bpm then and the following days. It was not an isolated incident. The high heart rate continued for days, which, as you can imagine, was terrible. Imagine your heart beating like you are running a race, but all while you’re lying down. She has felt terrible throughout this.
Her heart would slow some days after, but any event or question that brought this to light would cause her heart to once again pound out of her chest. I took about ten days off to stay with her because she felt uncomfortable alone. Even though there was no direct threat with me around, her heart would still race.
She described it, saying it was like the rational part of her brain could not tell her heart to slow down. Once we were about a week out, and there seemed to be no end in sight, I called the transplant team to seek advice. I explained the situation and what had been going on. The coordinator advised of some medication changes to help slow the heart rate down a bit. This helped a little, but, at first, tanked her blood pressure.
The problem with the rate being so high is Amanda’s vagus nerve was severed during the transplant, and it does not grow back. This nerve is what carries the orders for your heart from your brain. So when Amanda works out, her heart doesn’t quickly respond and go down as ours would. Her heart must take signals from the body on when to slow down, which takes time. With Amanda under the stress of the situation and no direct end to it, her body is still tense and thinks there’s a problem even though her mind knows better.
She has also not been sleeping well; I don’t think I could sleep well with my heart beating well over 100 beats a minute, either. We waited through the weekend, and she called her team again for more advice and to see if we needed to come in. They wanted to see her but didn’t have any openings for a few weeks and advised if it got worse, to go to the ER and let them do a cardiac workup.
She also scheduled an appointment with her primary. We saw him and laid out the whole situation. He spent a good while with us, over 30 minutes. He said she was having an acute stress response. Saying her body was in flight or fight mode as if you walked around a corner and got scared by someone, but with our situation, the threat hasn’t left and still looms.
He said it isn’t anxiety, but it is at the same time. It’s not an ongoing anxiety issue but just in response to this situation. An EKG was ordered to rule out an odd rhythm. It was okay, and he recommended increasing the medication the team had already increased and doubled it again. Sleep was imperative, he said, and he suggested that she increase her sleeping med as well.
He also suggested that anything that calms the body would help, like breathing or meditation. As we were leaving, I mentioned we were headed to Colorado soon for a long-planned getaway. He said that should help.
Thinking it would help, I told Amanda she should get a massage. I told her to call her local massage therapist and get an appointment. I’d also seen a Facebook post from someone local who did relaxing facials, and I encouraged her to book one. I joked with Amanda and said this was a hell of a way to get pampered!
All jokes aside, I’ve never seen Amanda like this. These events have had a massive impact on her health. Her emotional and psychological health has taken a toll, not to mention her heart. We’ve had such smooth sailing with her heart doing so well since the transplant. Now, she is back to pre-transplant levels of both her heart and sleeping meds.
Her rate is better controlled now, but just last night her heart jimped up to 170 without activity. We don’t know the long-term effects of this. We are praying we can get a solution to the problem, both the heart issue and who caused this problem to start. Hopefully, we can get some peace, and Amanda can get her heart to chill out.
I hope the body relaxation followed by a cool-weather Colorado getaway will drastically calm her heart down. We’ve had this vacation planned and mostly paid for for quite some time. Summers are always hectic for us, and we really enjoyed this time last year when we got away. But let me tell you, it can’t come any sooner.