He's my heartbeat

Larry had his ablation Monday.  We got there at 6:00 AM and they took him back at 8:00 sharp. They had told us the procedure would last anywhere from two to four hours.  I went to the family waiting room with our overnight bag, my pillow and my new Nordstrom blanket and I laid down on a small couch in there, watched a little of the morning national news and snoozed a bit.  I had zero anxiety over this procedure.  I was completely at peace.  Oh, I prayed, don't get me wrong, but I just had peace about it.  I knew he'd be okay.  The patient rep lets you know what's going on every hour so at 8:17, she came and told me they had started, at 9:15, he was doing great and at 9:45, he was done!  I grabbed our stuff and went to the recovery room where they were bringing him back to.  He was coming off the anesthesia while I talked to the doctor and found out that everything went great, the area that was causing all the trouble was located and frozen and hopefully, there would be no more AFib.  Larry's had an irregular heartbeat as long as he can remember, since he was a little boy, but as he's gotten older, it's gotten worse and a recent monitoring session we did through the VA showed that he was in AFib 70% of the time.  No wonder he felt so bad!  He wasn't getting very much of that really good oxygen-filled blood flow.  We got to a room around 12:00 and we just spent the night.  My sweet friend, Debbie, came twice to check on the boys and let Banjo out to potty.  (I am so very grateful for my friends.  They have been amazing, through all that's gone on the past year, always there to help out and bring food and coffee or whatever.)  I took a few pictures while we were camping out in the "Heart Tower".  We got NO sleep.  You know you can't sleep in a hospital!  It wasn't bad at all, though.  I slept on a pullout sofa next to Larry's bed with my blanket and pillow.  He was in a lot of pain at first, chest pain from the procedure and having to lay flat for four hours. The AFib showed back up Tuesday morning and his heart rate zoomed to scary levels!  It brought all the nurses in our room.  They told us that was to be expected, though, at first, and it should calm down but they still monitored him very closely over the next several hours.  They put Larry on another med to help with that and sent us home around 2:00.  All in all, I think we both received excellent care at the Luce Heart Institute.  Couldn't ask for better!  They should add my mama's name to a wing in that heart center.  She had two open heart surgeries and countless heart caths and angioplasties there.  Long before the "Heart Tower" came to be.  

I posted this pic on Instagram and commented that I don't have any tattoos but if I was to get one someday, it'll be Larry's heartbeat over my left breast.  His heartbeat over mine.  There's no other tattoo I'd want.

This picture made me laugh so hard.  This boy was ready to GO!

Thank you, Lord, for modern medical technology, that allows doctors to know how to fix things and help us when our bodies fail.