Sorry this has happened. My first ablation was also a failure. The fact is that, statistically across all practicing EPs, the failure rate of first, or 'index', ablations is about 25% with some variance between individuals.
For those new to this topic, after an ablation there is a 10 week 'blanking period' where the heart is meant to re-right itself, calm down, and for the various many burns or lesions created by the ablation procedure to heal and to form a sort of 'coffer dam' around the pulmonary vein mouths, four of them, in the left atrium. The research suggests that many patients will have some ectopy or arrythmia in the first two or three weeks, but a successful ablation will have those incidents drop off quickly. If all seems find, no ectopy, in the first few weeks, but then some incidents begin to happen, the prognosis is poor and the patient and EP should begin to come to terms with the reality. BTW, a 'successful' ablation is one that rids the patient of the treated arrhythmia for one full year. After that, the history across patients is mixed. Some go literally years without incident, some begin to experience a relapse a few months later. The science and practices are still in their infancy.
I wish people, especially those active in treating arrhythmias, were a bit more careful about their use of terminology. Patients are usually keen listeners, and we hear individual words that seem to stand out, or we remember strings of words that we think mean something other than what the counseling practitioner intends. For example, there is no 'cure' for atrial fibrillation....period. The heart after a successful ablation is still a disordered heart. All that has happened is that the EP has ablated successfully and has surrounded the re-entrant for the extra beat signal(s) with scar tissue and prevented the signal from crossing that scar tissue. The signals for the atrium to beat comes from a spreading wave of polarization, of electrical current, that enters and spreads across the entire endothelium. If that signal can be blocked by scar tissue, the signal cannot disperse and cause the unwanted contraction. Still disordered, but no longer able to beat chaotically...which means the EP has improved the symptomology, something he/she is really intent on doing.
I get arguments, but by itself, AF will not kill you. It can make you darned good 'n miserable, and it can be highly intrusive and almost run your daily routines, but it won't kill you. What it MAY do is to progressive to more intractable forms of it, they being persistent, long-term persistent, and permanent. As the heart spends more and more time in AF, its structure begins to change, and this remodeling, as it is called, will bring on other problems that CAN lead to a premature death. So, long to short, I am always pleased to see that people get up the gumption to undergo an ablation. They don't always work, not the first time in some cases, about 25% of the time, but second and third ablations have a higher success rate, and the improvement in quality of life is priceless.