Here are some more details about my 2nd episode - which happened about 3 years after the first one. I felt a little off when I got up in the morning - I hadn't slept well - during the night I kept waking myself up by taking deep breaths (shortness of breath is one of the symptoms of atrial fibrillation). I felt my pulse and it seemed off. - I remembered my previous episode and wondered if I was experiencing afib again. So I drove myself to the ER to be sure (I stopped at McDonald's on the way - I was pretty hungry). At the ER they hooked me up to a heart monitor and told me that my heart was beating so fast that it was dangerous for me - so they decided to use electric cardioversion. The patient is put under general anesthesia during the procedure (I was only out for a few minutes).

Luckily for me, the cardioversion worked and my heart beat returned to normal sinus rhythm and stayed that way until my most recent episode (I suppose it's possible that I had short episodes that I just didn't notice).