Finally got it
- by CatCow
- 2013-01-23 12:01:19
- General Posting
- 821 views
- 1 comments
For background, this started a year and a half ago or so when I blacked out while driving and crashed a gasoline tanker. Spent a week in the hospital while they did tests and left with an implanted loop recorder. A year later I finally have another blackout and they catch a 14 second "pause" in my heart. Doc says I should get a PM, I hem and haw for a while and get a nearly worthless second opinion before I finally decide to go ahead. And I haven't had a drivers license since the crash, medical suspension. Hoping that I'll be getting that back soon.
Two weeks tomorrow. Proud owner of a Medtronic ADDRL1. I had spent so much time upset about it, and worrying about things going wrong, and reading everything I could here and elsewhere... By the time the surgery appt came up, I was pretty much in the "hurry up and get it over with" mood. I was expecting myself to freak out, but stayed surprisingly calm the entire time. I either don't remember, or fell asleep for part of the operation - I remember the doc doing the initial incisions, and bugging him for some more locals when it started to sting a bit much, and then I remember asking where we were and they had just finished with the leads and we're hooking up the pacemaker, and then again as he was finishing up the sutures and the local was wearing off again as he finished the last stitch.
Certainly a bit sore for a while and didn't want to move around much at first, but not much as far as pain goes. Shoulder and under my armpit was pretty sore for a little over a week, all doing well now. Only used maybe 8 or 10 of the pain pills(Vicodin) they sent me home with - couldn't use them much during the day, it killed my score on the computer games! Pacemaker incision is healing up nicely, the site where the loop recorder was turned out a little uglier. They put me on antibiotics for a week and it's all looking great now. A bit annoyed by the restrictions, and sitting around at home with nothing much to do, but I'm getting through my Netflix queue pretty fast. Glad I have disability insurance through work. Can't wait to get back to doing something, but with the stuff I was doing I figure its another 2-4 weeks before I go back.
Overall it's been a pretty interesting experience. Got the invoice from the hospital, total is $22k, 13 of that is the pacemaker itself. Just waiting to see how disappointed I'm going to be with how much the insurance covers.
1 Comments
You know you're wired when...
Your kids call you Cyborg.
Member Quotes
It becomes a part of your body just like any other part.
Yup
by CatCow - 2013-01-23 01:01:41
I do a lot of research on just about everything I do LOL. And a lot of good info on here for various little things one would normally never thing about... Like me bugging them for a print-out of the PM settings while I was still on the operating table!
I think being young helps a lot with healing up fast as well, I'm only 32. I did have an issue with the automatic testing feature, I think it's called adaptive capture management? Kicks it into a pacing mode every day(twice a day? I don't know the interval) to check things. At the 1 week check the nurse was checking all the settings and doing some other tests and the ventricular pacing was very noticeable, to the point it nearly knocked the wind out of me when she was doing the manual tests, so she turned off the regular ventricular testing which has helped a lot. During the atrial management testing I barely or didn't feel at anything at all, so that was OK - but when the ventricular test kicked in, WOW.
So I guess they are going to look at it again at the next appointment and likely change some other settings(voltages and timing and such for the most part I guess). So right now it's set to DDD with rate drop response and a lower limit of 50ppm, RDR intervention rate is 100ppm for 2 minutes. I noticed that rate response is on as well - any thoughts on if this should be on or not? It seems like it wouldn't kick in since it won't run often anyway(although with the minor bradycardia issue at night, it has been pacing while I'm asleep), so I guess it doesn't matter... Just a little confused on that point. Just don't want it doing something funky later on because it's turned on. Still reading through the programming and reference manuals I downloaded from Medtronic's web site.
No pain around the incisions now, but I've noticed with the cold weather lately that I have to keep warm, if the area gets exposed to too much cold air it starts twitching... So definitely have to pile on the blankets in bed, or keep a coat on the rest of the time. Good thing the temps are going up around here for the rest of the week.