Cardioversion is a treatment to restore a normal heartbeat when your heart is beating too fast or with an irregular rhythm. It’s often used to treat atrial fibrillation, the most common kind of irregular beat. UCSF Health

Ablation is a procedure for restoring normal heart rhythm, particularly if the irregular rhythm has not responded to medication…The pumping action of your heart is triggered by electrical impulses. Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada

I got my third ablation last Monday because my atrial fibrillation has come back. In the olden days, say the 1970s or 80s, it was fairly common to treat atrial fibrillation with a pacemaker. Then cardioversion, which involves shocking the patient’s heart back into normal rhythm with electrical jolts using paddles that look like ping pong paddles. Cardioversion is such a big name for what seems like brute force, and then came the simply named ablation.

The name is deceptive, however. An Ablation is staggeringly complicated. Close to unimaginably complicated. In my case, a catheter(s?) is inserted into the blood vessel by my groin and guided into my heart where the extra heartbeats are being generated. The thickened heart walls are then removed or scarred so that they no longer generate extra electrical signals. This is all done in my body in the dark – duh! – so finding the areas to ablate is the main problem. On my Consent to Surgery for the procedure, it is listed as Catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation with electrophysiology testing trans-septal approach with transesophageal echocardiogram possible use of intravenous contrast media.

The equipment to do this is almost laughably complex as these photographs – the first by Michele, and the rest by one of the doctors, using Michele’s new iPhone – show.

I am now back home, feeling better except for the expected sore throat caused by the breathing tube inserted into my lung and an ultrasound sensor inserted into my esophagus. I think it was in my esophagus; I was peacefully unconscious, so I’m not sure.

I’m now on my way to having a heart free of Afib. I hope and expect.