Personally it has been a difficult two weeks. During this time my husband had been sick with what we thought was the flu, followed by two days with a fever of 101 along with a chest cold. The fourth day he woke up and asked me to make him an appointment with our GP. By 11am he was exhausted, lightheaded, and started to have a fast irregular heartbeat. So I started to take him in to the GP but they wouldn't see him early so I took him to the ER instead. When he was admitted he had atrial fibrillation, a fluctuating heartbeat that went between 175 - 205 and his blood pressure was way off. That day we spent with the ER doctors monitoring and trying to stabilize him.
Later he was admitted to the hospital and doing better, eventually he had stabilized with the IV medication, along with a blood thinner to make sure he didn't have a stroke. They kept him overnight to monitor him. The next day they tested his heart with an ultrasound and then x-rays to see if he had any clotting and to make sure his atrium was not enlarged. Fortunately everything checked out and his heart returned to normal rhythm. He will be on a beta-blocker for at least a month, have follow up appointments with his cardiologist, electro physiologist, and our GP. They say it will make him more vulnerable for this to happen again but at this point there is no reason to believe that it is a chronic problem.
When we finally checked him out of the hospital at the end of the week. We followed up the next day with our GP because of his continuing chest cough. She took one look in his throat and immediately diagnosed as a bad strep throat infection, he was put on an antibiotic and cough medicine. Why they didn't see this at the hospital I have a hard time understanding. She also looked over his blood work and it seems as though this episode was brought on by the stress that his body was under in fighting the strep along with dehydration. He will now get to follow up with more blood work to make sure that his white blood count is up after his round of antibiotics is up.
Once he was feeling better I followed up with what was not strep but most likely the flu that has been going around. This one is hanging on for about 5-7 days starting with a scratchy throat, aches, fever, and ending with a cold. I hope to be well by the end of the week . . .