Hi Gang, I'm in!

• by lamoureternelle
• 2009-08-27 10:08:44
• Coping
• 1611 views
• 12 comments

Sorry for the long post. I'll be briefer next time :)

I almost fell off my chair when the doctor in Beijing told me that my heart would pause unpredictably. The longest they managed to capture during a 24-hour Holter monitoring is 6.3 seconds. Imagine the disbelief. I have always conducted myself as an unsung Olympian.

She wanted me hospitalized right away for PM implant. After a combination of logical and illogical thinking, I decided to fly back to US and have it done close to home.

After the completion of the procedure on 8/20 (Thursday) afternoon, at Medical Center of Plano, they kept me in hospital overnight because I developed a mild fever. They gave me antibiotics and I accepted mild doses of pain killer and antibiotics.

I was able to go home on 8/21 afternoon. The pre-release pacemaker diagnostics showed that during the previous night the pulse generator worked 7% for my atrium and 1% for my ventricle. Not too bad: My natural pacer did its job most of the time. I'll see if I can persuade the doctor to get the upper to work even harder on its own.

On 8/22 and 8/23 I have been mostly dealing with the pain at the pocket wound beneath which the pulse generator was placed. I've heard about some returning to work the next day - I wonder how on earth they could focus with almost 50% of the
body paralyzed by the pain - may be by use of tons of pain killers and sleeping pills (for the night). Or they are simply life miracles. My admirations to them for 1) my pain was still there, and 2) the pain killers give me constipation. Ordinary Tylenol or Motrim might be a good idea and so I'll keep that as an option.

Since then the main thing I've been dealing with is the muscle cramp pain (or sore, depending on how you look at it) around the incision site, while standing/walking. I called the doctor's office and the nurse told me it is normal. My countermeasures are 1) Put left hand on stomach, 2) Sit down, and 3) Lie down. So far 3) is the most effective. It might take a few more days for the foreign object to be accepted completely by this body.

So far so good. It remains a mystery how this condition found residence in me. I've no familial history of AV block, although a few on my mom's side (including herself) had high blood presure; I've also been sportive all my life since childhood. I'm approaching 47 and in the past 3 weeks I've been shown what was behind my 10~ years of intermittent blackout episodes and recent 2 occurrences of passing out (last 7/31, and 8/1, both around 5-6am when getting up).

I've been looking for information mostly relating to living with a pacemaker. And I found this PM club a nice place.