Atrial Fibrillation

Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What If? Writing Exercise for Fiction Writers prompts

The Exercise — Choose a story that doesn't seem to be working and cut it apart into the separate components of scenes and narrative passages. Lay these story pieces out on a large table and just take in what is in front of you. How many scenes do you have? Are there any "missing" scenes? What would happen if you began with the beginning of the ending scene and use it to frame the story?

The Objective - To see an early draft of a story as something that isn't etched in stone. Not only are the words and lines capable of being revised, but the story structure itself is often still fluid enough to rearrange and analyze for the questions listed above.

Lemons aren’t perfect, and lemonade isn’t either. And it was suggested that I should eat more lemons as they can help with heart health, kidney stones, weight loss, anemia, and cancer. It is one thing I can do to help myself.

When I broke my arm and was put on OxyContin for the pain involved in healing after surgery, I was concerned. After watching others struggling to get off the medication, I wasn't sure how that might be for me. I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.

Now, granted, it has been 45 years, so how likely is it that I would have a slip back to using drugs? Why take the chance was my answer. My father-in-law said that he almost went back on the medication as it was so hard to stop.

Just a day or two after stopping the medication, I was really aware of the Atrial Fibrillation (AFIB) going on. I had Super Ventricular Tachycardia (SVT) for several years before that and knew how that worked. This wasn't that.

Since that time, I have been on heart medication to control the AFIB. And I haven't had the SVT either since then.

When I began to have lots of weird side effects that come and go, and not many that are even really connected to heart conditions. Like constant burping every day. Then there is the itchy neck, or episodic puffy hands or feet. Not both at the same time. Oh, and the most troublesome was bone aches in the feet and legs.

Then what was consistent and can be related to the heart is tiredness and becoming out of breath with very little exertion. Those symptoms were drastically improved by changing one of the medications from a larger dose once a day to two smaller doses twice a day.

I thought depression may have been a symptom too, and some days are worse than others, but who can’t say that since the pandemic? I went to a medicine man and was given a couple of teas to drink, and I am much better.

So, at the time I had a stress test, blood work, and a Computed Tomography (CT) scan. And I was scheduled for an echocardiogram. They have looked at the plantar fasciitis I was diagnosed with three years ago, and neuropathy in my hands and feet, but experts said it is more than that, causing the bone pain.

The physical therapy (PT) person I was referred to by the cardiologist for an exercise routine said, ”It is more than plantar fasciitis or neuropathy.” PT gave me a couple of months off to figure it out. Then I got another referral to pool therapy from my primary physician, which also didn't last.

I think they believe my being out of shape is giving me breathing difficulty. Rather, my breathing difficulty means I couldn’t get over 10–15 minutes on the treadmill. Less now. I get it as I have gained weight, which is also a side effect on the list.

More recently, there has been extreme tiredness in the morning and my taking naps, which I have never done before. These symptoms happened after cutting carbs. I decided to cut carbs for brain health after researching type 3 diabetes. It has helped. I noticed right away.

Before I broke my arm, I was walking 60–70 minutes a day on the treadmill. The surgeon asked that I stay off the treadmill while healing and being on pain medication.

My concern is almost always cancer, as the cancer I had and was treated for in 2013 is treatable, probably not curable. I thought that until a friend said she got her husband’s heart medicine changed when he could no longer go up and down the basement steps.

Then, I instantly knew I couldn’t go up and down basement steps either if we had them. So the medication changes have helped significantly. One prescription is gone, and the other is what I take twice a day. Because the cardioversion I had this year didn't last, I was told I may have to go back on the medication that I went off of.

The cancer concern was ruled out, as I have regular blood work and a yearly CT scan, and nothing shows up. I thought it was cancer, as I had to sleep sitting up before the cancer diagnosis, because I couldn’t breathe when lying down.

So, I need to work with the doctor to be withdrawn from medication and to do my part in taking the very best care of myself that I can, despite living with the AFIB.

I will keep working at making lemonade out of the lemons. This is the main way I worked with lemons until I was told that they would help with some of my concerns. And the flowers in the photo above help me in thinking of the sun that really does help any depression when that starts to sneak in!