SVT ablation tomorrow (in the NL)

So it has come to this. Never wanted to really post here, nor really bring it up to anyone, but yeah, I've lived with AFIB for more than half my life, but now at 28 I'm doing something with it.

It was never really clear that I had some form of SVT (other than AFIB itself technically being SVT) until last year where I decided to take it up myself to equip a Holter and instigate an episode myself. I had a couple of recorded AFIB episodes on ECGs but only one was ever recorded during initiation, and that one was only about 5 seconds long (and scared the fuck out of me, because they said they couldn't tell if it was SVT or VT, but apparently that sort of uncertainty happens).

Well, I thought why not go all out. After some coffee and a carb-heavy meal, I go together with my girlfriend for a run to execute the perfect AFIB episode, right next to the ER of my hospital. I start running almost without warmup, then I tell my GF to stand close to the entrance of the ER and then I go do some fun lil' sprints with tons of stop and start and twisting and jumping and voilà, about a couple mins in I have it. Successfully initiated my first episode voluntarily!

The Holter was very valuable, because they could clearly tell it was an SVT episode degenerating into AFIB. Furthermore they could also link this with previous episodes and data. That SVT/VT episode from earlier now I suppose became a pretty clear episode of SVT as it has wide complex QRS I think, synonymous with brief SVTs.

This whole year I've been preparing myself for it. Had to do some life stuff first, so I graduated a master's degree, got a job, moved, went on vacation, and more. But finally it was now scheduled for tomorrow.

I could go on for days on how much this has affected my life, and even more so, the bizarre decision of mine to literally try to keep it secret from everyone. I did the same thing with my horrible vision (-5, nearsighted) until I years later told my mom my vision "might be a bit bad" after I couldn't read the chalkboard from the front-row, heheh.

And also how I lived with this condition in tandem with an attempt of going pro as a footballer. Most people have the excuse of a torn ACL, well, I decided I'd do both, so I only fully quit (at 18) after I have had AFIB for a good 6 years, and then that year also getting the torn ACL and meniscus to go with it, hehehe again.

But what I want to do here is just communicate what I have felt, will feel, and any thoughts in between. Most people I see here like me document their experience and it has been a massive anxiety relief for me to read some stories. Most people are anxious as fuck leading up to it, and I'm one of those, and I won't be having anesthesia, so yeah that doesn't help.

I will be having sedatives though, I believe, but I want to mentally prepare myself to expect discomfort and pain, and more anxiety. I also feel like reading up on the physiology and mechanics of this condition makes it kind of worse because I will try to relate my sensations during the surgery to specific concepts which might stress me out more. But I also kind of relax the more information I have, heh.

Well I think that about covers it for now. Will be a long day I'm sure, but I will update once I have the opportunity to.