From the Heart

Tuesday night, I made a late night visit to a patient. It was midnight by the time I got home, and while the visit didn't last more than an hour, it took me an hour and a half to chart what I'd done. During my shift, the server for work was doing an upgrade. Remote users like me had to log in after the upgrade and make a few wireless transfers to install said upgrades. That took an hour. I couldn't wait to do it on the next day because my son had a doctor's appointment at 8 AM sharp and the treatments I'd done for my late night visit had to be charted for the next shift. I finished the upgrade and didn't get to clock out until 1:30 AM. I didn't fall asleep until sometime after 2. Ugh.

I got up at 6:30 in the morning to meet my son across town at the doctor's office. It was a meeting with a new Electrophysiology Cardiologist. A specialist in electrical conduction issues in the heart. Once again, we're traveling down this path to find a way to correct the aberrant tissue that makes his heart race--even at rest. The biggest problem here is that this little piece of tissue is within the heart's AV node--an electrical relay station that controls signals between the top chambers of the heart and the lower ones. Of course it has to be complicated. Would my family do things any other way?

The EP doc was late for our appointment. One hour late, to be exact. I forgave him because I liked him, and I liked him because he was honest. He can't do the procedure my son needs because he doesn't have the right equipment. My son needs cryoablation. He's failed radio frequency ablation. Once again, we've been referred to the University of Michigan to pursue a fix, but the fix is not without significant risk. With a lot of luck and not a little skill, he could be cured, but if too much tissue is destroyed during the repair, my son, whose symptoms are well controlled with one dose of a beta blocker per day, will end up with a pacemaker for life. He's only 21.


The conundrum here is that it's my son's dream to find employment with a government agency doing security and counter-terrorism analysis. Most agencies have a list of exclusionary medications and conditions. Both his medication and his cardiac diagnosis are on that list.

Dream busters.

The doctor was empathetic to my son's problem. He explained as best as he could that having a pacemaker would ultimately put an end to my son's dream job, too. He encouraged him to think about other careers before he explored a permanent, non-revokable cure to his problem.

Last night, exhausted and worried, I talked to my son about the referral. He wants to go to the U and explore the cure. Me? I'd prefer he stayed on the beta blocker for the rest of his life, but it's not my heart and it's not my life. It's his. These are his dreams that he has doggedly pursued for the past 4 years. He's stayed out of trouble because he hasn't wanted something stupid, like a minor in possession citation, to ruin his chances of a dream job. He's never missed a day at school. He's won a coveted government internship for the summer that many don't get because their background checks don't pan out. It would be a shame for a bum heart condition to ruin his opportunities.

I apologized to him last night. He wanted to know why. I said, "well I birthed you, and your problem is most likely genetic in origin." He told me, "don't be sorry--it's not your fault and as genetic problems go, it's not as bad as it could be. I learned that lesson from Rachel."

I think his heart is fine just the way it is.

A note about the photos...this was the cast on process for the Deep in the Forest Mittens. After an initial run with my handspun yarn, I ripped it out and cast on with the commercial yarn. My handspun was too bulky for this delicate pattern and would have yielded hand covers more suitable as oven mitts. I trusted the braided border video that though the yarn would tangle as the dark and light yarns helicoptered over each other to make the braid, they would untangle on the following round. They did. I'm going to trust that my son will make an educated decision about untangling his own mess in respect to his heart and find what's best for him.

Sigh...