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Getting Back in Rhythm
on heart monitors, Transfiguration, and balance
So the docs and nurses have been watching my mother’s rhythm since Friday. Due to atrial fibrillation, her heart rate has been speeding for a while. They’ve tried shocking her back into rhythm at the hospital back home, but that didn’t last. Now we’ve checked into a hospital in a larger city to try a medication that requires monitoring at first, before gradually increasing the dose.
For someone who is used to being “on the go”, my mother is having to stop, to lay in a bed, and to wait.
The regular rhythm of her Sundays involved taking her little dog on a walk, going to church, Sunday school, playing the organ, then lunch and a nap. Then it was time to pick up her niece and go back to church again.
Instead, the regular beats of this day have consisted of a nurse checking her vitals, a kind staff person bringing breakfast, meds, an EKG, a visit from her cardiac electrophysiologist, lunch, nap, vitals, meds, dinner. A few times there's the beat of a walk around the halls of the unit. It was much the same as yesterday.
