My Twenty-Five Year Experience with Supraventricular Tachycardia
A heart grown tired of its chronic techno house beat — from my debut book Before the Big Bang Makes a Sound.
Turning It Off And On Again
My heart troubles began the summer I graduated from high school, and of all places while I was at church in the middle of singing “How Great Thou Art” from a Baptist pew hymnal. At first, the sensation felt similar to an innocuous flutter before taking on the immediacy of a gunshot at the start of a race. Next came the rapid heartbeat that immediately took my breath away before the dizziness set in.
My mother could see my heartbeat frantically pulsating underneath my neck like serious wartime SOS. She drove me right away to Saint Mary’s Hospital, located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where I was immediately greeted by a team of doctors and nurses, who began to take my vitals while hooking me up to a heart monitor. I’d remember being frightened by all the rushed activity and the constant beeping of machines.
My ER physician introduced herself as Dr. Dylan; Dylan being her first name, not last. I’d remember thinking what a cool name, especially for a girl. The only Dylan reference that I knew of at the time was the fictional moody character Dylan Mckay from Beverly Hills, 90210, which I watched religiously every week. Back then, unisex, or uncommon names, weren’t as big of a trend. However, for a few years back in middle school, Apollonia would be my top name choice for a future daughter, but Dylan never crossed my mind.
Dr. Dylan resembled a younger Ellen Burstyn, down to the mushroom cap hairstyle and fabulous, angled-architecture of the face. It’s funny the details one remembers while in duress. Maybe that’s because time seems to slow down in the middle of a crisis.
Dr. Dylan did not warn me before giving me one hell of a drug called adenosine. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH):
“To manage supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), adenosine is ideally given through a peripheral intravenous (IV) access as a 6 mg dose followed by a 20 mL saline flush for rapid infusion. Subsequent doses start at 12 mg, followed by 20 mL of saline for rapid infusion.”
Someone on Reddit had the perfect descriptor for adenosine:
Adenosine is the medical version of “have you tried turning it off and on again?”
To clarify, by turning it off and on again, they mean the heart.
I’d never felt so close to death than in that moment. The pressure on my chest felt like I was being trampled on by a stampede of spooked, wild horses. But as quickly as the pain came on from the adenosine, it would quickly recede, and I could breathe more freely again. My heart rate started off at around 270 that day, with 289 being my highest clock heart rate, down to 90, then eventually to a more stabilized 78. Dr. Dylan later told me that I had Supraventricular Tachycardia — a mouthful of a diagnosis that’s commonly known by its acronym — SVT, and referred me to a cardiologist.
The Death of Model Krissy Taylor
Two years after my first SVT episode, on July 2, 1995, news would break that Krissy Taylor, the younger sister of supermodel Nikki Taylor, who was a sought after high fashion model in her own right, had suddenly passed away at just seventeen. At first, it was reported in the news that her death was attributed to an asthma attack, but later clarified that she passed away from a heart condition called Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD).
Nikki was interviewed by Fox News in 2018 to discuss the heart disease that claimed her sister’s life:
It was Niki who found her sister unconscious at the family’s home in Florida in July of 1995. Despite efforts to revive her, she was pronounced dead at the hospital. The cause was a rare heart condition called Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia or ARVD.
According to the American Heart Association, ARVD occurs if the muscle tissue in the right ventricle dies and is replaced with scar tissue, which can ultimately disrupt the heart’s electrical signals and cause arrhythmias.
“There can be an irregular rhythm that occurs that causes the blood pressure to drop significantly and this rhythm can lead to sudden cardiac death unless it’s diagnosed and treated,” Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a cardiologist and director of women’s heart health at the Heart and Vascular Institute at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, told Fox News.
Symptoms of ARVD can include palpitations, shortness of breath and fainting.
Although two distinctly different heart conditions, with the latter being way more deadly than SVT, I could relate to Krissy regarding the comments she’d make regarding her racing heart:
“She would always say ‘my heart’s beating so fast… I don’t know what’s going on,’ so we just thought it was normal butterflies or excitement, but this was probably symptoms that something else was going on.”
The Nightmare & SVT
My SVT seemed to settle down in my early to mid-twenties, but came back with a vengeance at twenty-nine. This time, my SVT episode was triggered by a nightmare of all things. In my dream, a man I didn’t know or recognize began to bleed profusely from his mouth, spraying his blood all over my face while motioning for help. When I shot out of bed in response to my nightmare, swatting away at the invisible blood on my face, my heart would go straight into SVT.
My husband was away on a fishing trip with his dad so I called 911 for an ambulance, myself, where I was given adenosine a total of three times: once in the ambulance, and twice in the ER. The tending ER doctor would give me a sedative afterwards because I was so traumatized by the multiple doses of adenosine. I took a cab home, and slept the rest of the day.
First Cardiac Ablation
In 2011, when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter, my SVT came back two times, one episode at the start of my pregnancy and the other two weeks before my due date. They would end up inducing labor a few days later. Three weeks after giving birth, I would have my first cardiac ablation.
According to the Mayo Clinic:
Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) ablation is a treatment for irregularly fast or erratic heart rhythms that affect the heart’s upper chambers. It uses cold or heat energy to create tiny scars in the heart. The scars block faulty electrical signals and restore the heart rhythm.
Second Cardiac Ablation
My second cardiac ablation would occur almost seven years later after a horrific SVT episode, my last one, in March 2018. We were in the middle of a move to a new apartment in Brooklyn, and I was doing most of the packing myself. I wasn’t drinking enough water, and not getting enough sleep at the time. I think this may have been the trigger, along with too much caffeine. That Saturday, in March, I’d taken my daughters to their math tutoring session, and while sitting in the waiting room, I would feel that familiar “gun shot” feeling right before my heart rate rapidly increased.
This time, however, I was forty-four, and immediately felt a vast difference when compared to earlier SVT episodes. For one, I was way older. My chest felt tighter. The feeling was akin to a figurative boa constrictor wrapped around my chest, squeezing the life right out of me. I felt like at any moment my rib cage was going to crack under the insane amount of pressure. I had to bend over just to breathe. I called my husband, who ran over to meet our daughters at their math tutoring session before I’d walk down to the corner to an awaiting ambulance so as to not scare them.
The first responders took me to the nearest hospital, which was a few blocks away. The doctors and nurses began to surround me when they wheeled me into the ER. They wanted me to first try something called Vagal Maneuvers, when you bear down like in giving birth, coughing, gag reflex, applying pressure to the abdomen. According to the website for Cleveland Clinic:
Vagal maneuvers are physical actions that make your vagus nerve act on your heart’s natural pacemaker, slowing down its electrical impulses. Your vagus nerve — which goes from your brainstem to your belly — plays a major role in your parasympathetic nervous system, which controls a number of things in your body, including heart rate.
When the Vagal Maneuvers failed to work, they planned to go the adenosine route — an unforgettable pain. This time I stood my ground:
“Please sedate me first ,” I’d beg the ER physician on duty that day, a handsome, young resident with a gentle bedside manner.
The doctor explained to me that they couldn’t sedate me because my blood pressure was dangerously low. I’d glean that this time was the most serious out of all my SVT episodes to date, even during my last pregnancy. The severe tightness in my chest coupled with the super low blood pressure and trouble breathing felt more intense this time. Just then, I asked if someone could pray with me.
The first responder, who resembled a young Jack Black, had stuck around the ER to see my final outcome and had put his hands up in the air like a Food Network Chopped contestant, signalling to me with his immediate body language that he was not the “praying” type.
Hope & Prayer
Out of nowhere, this nurse would randomly appear at my bedside, grabbing my hand inside of her own as she fervently prayed with me. I remember she had long braids in her hair, and the prettiest skin that had an inner, almost ethereal glow: she was beautiful. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital bed. The first question I’d ask was about the dreaded adenosine — “Did they give it to me yet?” The doctor would then inform me that my blood pressure had miraculously gone up enough to give me versed, a sedation drug that also goes by the name midazolam, followed by adenosine. Although I had a feeling of some lost time after the sedation, I’d swear it felt like I got sedated and then given adenosine right after the nurse prayed with me, in succession.
Afterwards, I’d spend two nights in the hospital for observation, followed by a second cardiac ablation in July 2018. This cardiologist, however, promised me that the faulty or “sticking” valve that was disrupting the electrical flow of my heart for decades will not return.
Next year will mark seven years since my second cardiac ablation, the same exact time span between my first ablation in 2011 and the return of SVT in 2018. I’m hoping this second ablation sticks this time. Now that I’ve entered my fifth decade, I can’t imagine going through another SVT episode; and subsequenty, another ablation.
