I am home!! Groggy, feeling VERY drunk, and wanting to train NOW, but home!! All in due time. Is it sad, my first thoughts today are "boy am I glad my bike is on a trainer so I can not fall off as far"

As I drifted off to sleep, one of many times today, I heard something very special, a normal heart beat, and it was MINE!! Did not truly appreciate such a little thing until this round of Afib

"Well it's 5 AM and I'm ready to go, a little stretching and no cup of Joe...." D day is here. Throat still sore from the TEE yesterday, but just uncomfortable. I was a walking zombie after the procedure until about 9 PM. That included about a 2.5 hour nap after getting home and eating. I think I almost fell asleep on my dinner plate All good. Now let's get my life back.

Thanks for all the well wishes. My wife hopes to be able to log on and post on my behalf latter today. I go in to the hospital a 7, and should be in a room by 5 tonight.

Logged the sick as a 2 as most of the day was spent under general anaesthesia.

Hopefully I am not screwing up his blog.  Joe wanted me to post on BT once he was out of surgery.  He is presently in recovery (6:30).   After a much delayed start, he went in.  All went well.  Hoping to be able to check in on him a little after 7.  I am sure he will be back to posting in the next few days.  - April

Warning, this is very long and very deep. I wrote this for me, but feel free to entertain yourself by reading it.

Bizarre morning today.I am in a great mood, almost euphoric. I actually had to look up the spelling of that word. Not only that, but it just looks weird with the spelling. Just goes to show you how rarely I use the word, but how much I am enjoying this morning.

This morning has been just an assault on the senses.  First, I woke this morning hearing the birds as the sun started to rise. This was just before 5 AM. It was even more of a predawn, than dawn itself. I began to muse about how on mornings you should get out of bed for a workout, the warmth of the blankets are too inviting to pass up. Yet on a morning where you should be sleeping in, it is almost impossible to go back to sleep after 6 hours of sleep. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the birds, but was compelled to get out of bed and start typing this.

As I write these words, I can hear my Grandfather in my head, saying one of his trademark lines from my youth. "It is 5 AM, why don't you just go back to bed, the day is 1/2 over already". Not sure if he ever said the next line, but I think it was implied, "Not like you are going to have enough time to get anything done today." 

The randomness continues. My brain is working on overdrive with random thoughts. Part of getting out of bed is to make sure my wife had every opportunity to sleep as long as she can. I had the clarity of thought that I wanted to listen to Granger Smith "5 more Minutes" on repeat. If you have read this so far, I strongly recommend finding the song and listening to it. It brought tears to my eyes, but it also feels very inspiring to me today. I am looking forward to today's procedures and I am gleefully anticipating tomorrow's surgery. I feel like a little kid ready to go to Disney for the first time! Not quite sure why. The only thing I keep coming up with is that I am approaching tomorrow as if it is a birthday. Working under the premiss that everything in the next 2 days and following weeks goes perfectly, it will be like being reborn. Not sure if my expectations are too high, or if the last few weeks have given me a new perspective of life. (Very deep BS moment, but it is what it is).

As I write this, it is being done in ways that do not feel as if they are from me. I do not usually write this much, or with such depth of thought. My hands and editing can not keep up with my thoughts. This is not new for me. What is new is that instead of racing off on a tangent, my brain is stopping to enjoy the flowers for a moment while the rest of my body catches up. Kind of like jumping into someone else s world for a few moments.

Last night, as my wife and I were in bed and trying to fall asleep, I did something that dose not come naturally to me. We curled up to snuggle. This is kind of hard for me. I say that because I fidget a ton! To snuggle requires a level of stillness that I am not able to achieve easily. It was what I needed to do, but true to form, it did not last long enough.

Random thought warning, I am amused at the fact my mind is censoring my thoughts. As I type this, I have words I intend to put on the page. Instead, self editing is occurring. First is an obsession to physically edit my spelling. I would probably be better served just going full bore, but it might also be a blessing that the physical act of editing is slowing my brain down. Second is that I am editing my choice of words. If a word might have a negative connotation, I am changing the choice of words to reflect a more positive view of the world. This was a part of a breakthrough last week with my shrink (thanks Lisa). (If you get to this point, please comment on the positive vs negative vibe of this rambling, thanks)

Now back to the cuddling. As we lay there, I became astutely aware of my wife's heart beat. At first it was a warm and fuzzy feeling. It brought back memories of when my daughter was an infant. Someone gave us a teddy bear with an artificial heart beat. The idea was it would comfort a child to mimic being in the womb. Very calming concept. The next sensation  was the fact my blankets were too close to my mouth. It was getting hot fast, and the cat hair on it was tickling my nose. After fidgeting  a bunch, I could not quite get the blanket right. Close enough was going to work so I could get back to the purity of the snuggle. Back came the sound of my wife's heart beat. It was my entire world for that moment. It was nice not to have all the other things in my world interrupting my thoughts and just to have the moment was precious. Of course moments like this are fleeting, thus why they must be enjoyed and cherished. A random thought entered my brain.

Listening to my wife's perfect heart beat was the first time in a very long time I was conscious of a proper heart beat. It seems like forever since I have heard such a great and wonderful sound. I am not aware of my heart beat in general. Being in Afib has made me aware of it, and kept me up at night. The palpitations can dominate the moments before I drift off to sleep. I  started to laugh. My wife was confused at the random laughter. I explained part of what I have written here. I am pretty sure I was much more amused than she at the spontaneity of the moment. Snuggle moment had passed. I wanted it to continue, but our sleep was too important and over due to try to regain the moment.

Just once, I would like to drift off to sleep with her while snuggling. The thought is bringing tears to my eyes right now. This is one of many moment in the past few weeks that have had the words uttered, "lets assume I have Aspergers like my daughter too."

I hear the world starting to move around me. I would love to be able to continue this wonderful exercise in writing, but the family needs me. My help will be appreciated. I do not think I have ever written this deep or this long. I do know for sure that I can truly understand why those who do it so well enjoy it so much. With that thought, it is off to the unknown of the next few days of pre op and heart surgery. Until I can return to BT, I wish everyone who took the time to read this far a wonderful day!!

Well, I think I have left myself with nothing I must get done between now and the surgery on Tuesday. If I can just sleep at night instead of 2 hours at a time all day long, I will be all set.

Spent most of the night in a sleepless state. My brain was 1/2 out, but full of random thoughts. Felt kind of weird. Lots of bizarre dreams that were very loud, colorful and animated. I am sure it is anxiety that I am not outwardly feeling, but it was kind of like trying to sleep at a Metallica show. Oh well, up to be mentally productive, even if it is video games, just to slow my brain down enough to take another nap.

I have not been logging my naps as sleep. They are random and kind of hard to log as they are kind of like a second workout that has no space in the blog. Oh well.

Going to see if I can work on pacing today. Have made a decent size list of doable chores that I can pick away at. The goal is to be productive and keep up some energy. Will see how it goes.

Had to force myself to sign up an account on {gulp} ST last night. I do not even want to say it as I seem strangely dirty by even having gone away from BT to any other site. I stumbled across some very good threads involving triathletes, afib and treatments, particularly ablation. They have been quite helpful. I felt the need to chime in on one of the threads, thus an account was need. Knowledge is power. Unfortunately, BT dose not have a strong thread for afib or ablation, so I go where the info is.

Right now, I only have two very small concerns about the surgery and recovery. First is the TEE procedure. I have a very active gag reflex. Also having to be sandbagged for 3+ hours concerns me. I am very fidgety by nature. Enough sedatives will slow anxiety, so a call to Tufts is in order today. I know the answers will come on Monday, but if they are keeping me awake at night, I would at least like to try to get some advanced info.