Septal Ablation

Hi @johnwx,
I bet you are a wee bit anxious...thankfully you are in the best place in the world for this treatment.
I pray all goes well, that your recovery is swift, and you feel great soon.
This has been quite a journey you've been on!

@karukgirl Thank you. Yes, I have some anxiety. Strangely, my worry comes from my angiogram before the septal ablation. I have this fear there will be a blockage that will preclude the ablation. Worse yet, if there is one, somehow I will think I did something wrong in my life to cause it. Then I would need a stent and the ablation would be put off. As you can see, I am good at catastrophizing!

I learned a few things today about my procedure from the cardiology nurse who works with Dr. Mackram Eleid. I had the wrong spelling for his name in an earlier post. Darn autocorrect.

I was called by a cardiology nurse this evening to let me know to report at 10:30 am the next day to have a temporary pacemaker put in. I was told to ignore the text message text message with a later time. In the end, I got a text message for the original report time of 12:15 pm and a second text with the 10:30 am time. Make sure to respond to text messages to confirm you received them (usually a number, don’t just write CONFIRM).

Once the temporary pacemaker is in, I will be ready for my procedures when the doctor is ready.

Make sure to follow the directions in your Patient Guide once you get to the Mary Brigh building on the St. Mary’s campus, so you can get to desk 4D on the fourth floor. They said to make sure to take the east elevators.

I was told that there would be conscious sedation during the septal ablation, a bit lighter sedation than a colonoscopy. I will let you know how that goes.

@johnwx At this time as I write this you are most probably recovering and feeling thankful it's over! Dr Eleid was my first contact with the medical staff at Mayo, my first interview was with him by phone. I liked how he was so reassuring and answered our questions about the upcoming septal myectomy (Dr Schaff was the surgeon) in language easily understood by lay people. How are you feeling????

Hello @johnwx,
Just wondering how things went? Were they able to do the ablation after your angiogram?

I am resting comfortably at home after a successful procedure. I was very happy with the care I received. I will share more of my experience soon.

Now for some more information on my experience.

Note: you’ll give your first and last name plus birthdate every time you have any test or procedure, so just be ready when they ask 🙂

Expect that you will have delays in the start of your procedures. Emergency cases do come in to the catheterization lab (or whatever the new name is). I was prepped and awaited my first procedure for 3-4 hours. I was visited by several nurses and Dr. Eleid's fellow, who was very caring and helped put me at ease. Note that no family members or friends are allowed back with you, as there are only curtains and there is no privacy (you can overhear many a conversation).

For the septal ablation, be aware there are two procedures. First, they put in a temporary pacemaker. This took about one hour. The pacemaker was "attached" to my neck on the right side. Afterwards, I was taken into a a recovery room where my significant other was able to come back back to see me.

When Dr. Eleid was ready, they moved me into a different procedure room for the actual ablation. They start out doing an angiogram to check for any blockages in your heart arteries. After the angiogram, Dr. Eleid was kind enough to let me know there were no blockages to prevent the ablation. Blockages would need to be 70% or greater before they would stent them.

During the ablation, I was awake only part of the time--and what a time it was! This was when they put alcohol into the small arteries in my septum. As the alcohol went in, I definitely felt the pain of what it would be like to have a heart attack! Wow! They quickly gave me morphine to cover the pain. In the end, they put alcohol into two of my septum arteries.

Just for your information, they went in on both sides of my groin. One side was for Dr. Eleid and his fellow, the other for monitoring by another doctor and another fellow (?). My procedure seemed to take over two hours. I am not sure if that was because mine was different or difficult. Due to the earlier delays, I didn’t get to my hospital room on my floor until after 9 PM. Before settling in for the night, I had to have a chest x-ray. It seems that Mayo gives you an x-ray any time you are there--I have had so many that I have a free coupon for a future x-ray now 🙂

More later!