It has been hotter than Hades this week. We’ve hit 100° for the first time in years. Luckily, the humidity hasn’t been horrible and only pushed the thermometer up to 105°. Only. Lol.

Last month, when I went to see the Electrophysiologist and told him I had had two other brief episodes of Atrial Fibrillation since my hospitalization at the end of June, he gave me the choice of treatments: a fourth ablation or a medication I took for a very short period of time in 2019. I was not comfortable with having a fourth ablation at this time, so I chose the medication, Tykosin (dofetilide). The kicker with that, though, was that to be placed on this medication, it required a three-day hospital stay to determine the dosage and to make sure it doesn’t kill you. Nice. The medication can cause a fatal heart arrhythmia so continuous heart monitoring must be done and every thirty minutes after each dose, they administer an ECG to make sure things were ok. I had so many things going on that the only time I was able to squeeze the three days in was the first three days of September.

But the closer it got to “D-Day”, the less I wanted to spend three days in the hospital, doing whatever things you can do while confined to a hospital room. The deciding factor was realizing that, under my Medicare policy, a three-day hospital stay would cost me over $1,000.

So on Monday I called and cancelled the hospital stay and told my doctor’s office that I preferred to treat any future episodes with the “Pill in the Pocket” technique (which the doctor had prescribed to me when I left the hospital in June). If I have an episode, I take a dose of Metoprolol and if it doesn’t go away, take another dose and then call the doctor. If things get worse, I’ll reconsider the ablation.

I’ve decided several different things about my medical treatments in the last few years. I never felt I had sleep apnea, as I didn’t have any of the symptoms. I was supposed to have a sleep test done in 2020 because there is some correlation between sleep apnea and Atrial Fibrillation, but Covid happened and my appointment was cancelled. By the time they started doing this testing again, I decided I didn’t want to do it.

It wasn’t until I wanted to get a new night guard for my jaw clenching and was told I couldn’t get one unless I had a sleep apnea test that I decided to do it.

To my surprise, I was diagnosed with mild sleep apnea. I’ve always contended that I would not use a CPAP; that I didn’t want to be tethered to my bed by my head, so I chose the Mandibular Advancement Device as my treatment. I wore this device for about six months until it misaligned my jaw and I was biting my lip and tongue every time I ate. Now I don’t treat my sleep apnea at all. I’ve never felt that I had any symptoms of sleep apnea, so in this case, the treatment was worse than what it was treating.

Same thing with my COPD. I have moderate COPD, I’m sure from 25 years of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. The Pulmonologist prescribed the inhalant medication “Trelegy”. One puff a day and it was supposed to keep the COPD from advancing. Shortly after I started using this inhalant, I became hoarse and couldn’t clear my throat. I also started experiencing constipation and my right eye was twitching constantly.  I love to sing in my church choir, so being constantly hoarse was not something I could tolerate. I contacted the doctor’s office and told her about what I was experiencing and her answer was that the benefits outweighed the side effects…true on paper, but not in real life. I stopped using the inhaler and decided at this point in time, until I feel like I need to, I’m not treating my COPD either.

The Great Hunter and I are leaving tomorrow for a couple of days at Lake of the Ozarks. I’m really looking forward to it.

I hope you enjoyed my backyard birding photos. They make me smile. I hope they did for you too.