Before I get into our pre-cruise story, I need to give you a little background information.

A couple months prior to our cruise, hubby had gotten up one morning and walked into the bathroom as usual. What wasn’t usual is that as soon as he got into the bathroom, he passed out. He came to right away, but had no idea what was going on or why he lost consciousness. I took him to the ER and they immediately hooked him up to monitors which showed he was in Afib. This started him down the road of seeing a cardiologist who eventually had him wear a monitor for a month to determine if this was a one-time event or a regular problem for him.

On March 2nd, just 4 days prior to us flying out for our cruise, hubby received a call from his cardiologist telling him to go to the ER because of a “cardiac event” that showed up on the monitor he was wearing. By this point, he was due to remove the monitor on March 3rd and return it, but when your cardiologist tells you to go the ER, you follow orders.

He was again hooked up to monitors, but this time he was admitted to the hospital. What was discovered is that his resting heart rate was dropping into the 40’s and a couple time into the 30’s. But the event that sent him to the ER this time was that his heart had actually stopped for 3.8 seconds. That’s not something you want to hear, but something you need to hear. Because of the slow heart rate and the heart actually stopping, the cardiologist “strongly” recommended that hubby go into surgery to have a pacemaker inserted.

The next day he was in surgery and after another night in the hospital he was released to go home. We knew that this would most certainly change our travel plans, but the surgery was successful, and the cardiologist gave hubby the green light to go on the cruise. He had strict instructions to wear his sling, to rest (that’s easy to do on a cruise), not lift anything over 10 lbs, no pushing the stroller, no pulling heavy luggage and to stay out of the pool, hot tub and ocean. Even with the okay to travel though, we questioned if it would be better for him to go or to cancel and stay home, but he really wanted us to go, so we went. He was definitely tired the first few days and couldn’t participate in some of the activities we had planned, but as each day passed, he got better.

When we got home, he had a follow up with his cardiologist who was very pleased with how well he was recovering. For a matter-of-fact, he was recovering faster than expected, so apparently cruising is healing.