He stole my heart....because his beats funny sometimes

Dallas's heart is kind of silly. Sometimes it decides to beat really fast, for no apparent reason. Sometimes it likes to skip a beat. Sometimes it's rhythm doesn't make much sense. So that's why he married me and now has possession of my heart. He wanted to have an extra, you know? Just in case.

Last October(ish...) Dallas told me he had been feeling weird things with his heart lately. Being the over protective student nurse wife that I am, I grilled him about his symptoms. He told me it just "fluttered" sometimes, and then sometimes his chest would just hurt. Now, for Dallas, this isn't a new symptom. In high school, he passed out during a wrestling match, and in the following doctor's appointments, was diagnosed with ventricular tachycardia (VT), which means his heart would beat really fast and irregularly periodically. He had it "fixed" through a procedure called an ablation, where they go in and scar the nerves in the heart that are causing the fast heart rate.

Fast forward 6 years, and these symptoms have come back. I got really nervous and chatted with one of my nursing professors. As soon as I told her he had a history of VT, she got nervous too and told me he should go see his cardiologist as soon as possible. This made me really really really nervous, and we called the doctor's office that day. Luckily, Dallas was able to see the same doctor that had done his ablation 6 years ago, and he remembered Dallas (or at least he pretended to). After about 2 months of diagnostic tests (continuous heart monitor for 30 days, MRI, new medications etc) Dallas's doctor decided it was time for another ablation. When we went in the day after Valentine's day for the procedure, Dallas was cool as a cucumber, and I was still really nervous; my medical background DID NOT help calm my nerves at all.

Dallas's EKG

The procedure took about 3 hours. Which was forever and a day. When he finally came out, I was so relieved that I just bawled and bawled. It was like I could finally let out all the stress and worry I had kept built up inside, and boy did it feel good! Me and my worry-wart mind had been making up all sorts of ridiculous alternate endings to this story. I kept thinking of my mom telling the story of when my dad had an emergency quadruple coronary bypass after going in for a fairly routine heart procedure. He basically almost had a heart attack on the operating table, and I kept thinking, what if that happens to Dallas? Or what if he just dies, right there during the procedure? What would I do? Would I finish the semester? What about all of our plans? How would I keep living? Oh jeez, I'm tearing up right now just thinking about it! Needless to say, the tears shed when I saw him totally ok made me realize just how much I love this man! And how totally lost I would be without him in my life.

Ok. The mushy stuff is over. Promise.

As we got back to the hospital room, and Dallas was waking up, he started to do THE funniest things. He'd start a sentence and then fall asleep mid word and then he'd wake back up and ask me the same four questions he did last time he was awake. Those four questions were
1. How long did the procedure take?
2. What did the doctor say it was?
3. Did the doctor get it all?
4. When are you getting my Jamba Juice?
At first I had really great long and very informative answers, but each time he asked my replies got shorter and shorter. The next morning, when he finally started to remember things, my answers had become
1. About 3 hours.
2. He called it atrial tachycardia
3. That's what he told me
4. ....Don't you remember drinking it last night?

Morning after, about the time when he started to remember things

The absolute funniest conversation we had while he was waking up was this:
Dallas: "I bet we're gonna hafta come back, and we'll just bring all our kids at once, get it over in one lump sum. And then we can walk down the halls with our IV poles, butt naked with tattoos that say 'mom' 'dad' 'child' 'child' 'outcast' 'child' 'infant'"
Kaylie: "Honey, why is one of our children an outcast?"
Dallas: "Because that's the one that went to BYU. No...no....the U. They went to the U."

Worn out

And I apologize for the lack of videos. He told me before the procedure that he didn't want ANY videos, so I obeyed. Then he told me afterwards that he actually did want some videos.... silly boy.

It's been six weeks since the procedure and everything is still great. He only has occasional flutters, and they are getting fewer and farther between, and we're hoping that they will stop soon!