1 % club

• by lubro
• 2013-03-10 01:03:22
• General Posting
• 1070 views
• 5 comments

Greetings everyone,

I originally posted here as a newbie back in Jan...had the pacemaker installed on the 17th...got some good feedback, and was adjusting fine until I became a member of the 1% club.
Doctors always tell you that there is always that 1% chance of something going wrong...well, it's no fun being a 1% member, I'll tell yah..
Almost 3 weeks to the day from having the pm installed, I had severe chest pains and its back to the hospital. Echocardiogram reveals blood in the heart sack, apparently from a microscopic puncture to the atrium wall during the original proceure ( ah, the old 1% rule)...Had a procedure done called pericardial sentesis (sp?)...anyway, Dr's shove this hu-friggin-mungus needle into the heart sack and drain all the fluids (uh, that would be blood) from said heart sack. Then they install a garden hose like drainage system which attaches to a drainage bag to wait and watch until the drainage stops. After a few days, apparently the hole-in-my-heart scarred over and the drainage stopped... Now, we're ready for the corrective procedure...All was fine until the night before when I developed a blood clot in my left shoulder area, in the vein where the pm was implanted...Now we're off to the main hospital downtown where there are numerous cardio surgeons on staff should something go wrong...pretty scary stuff...But indeed, all went well...both leads from the pm were repositioned, and back to icu to ride it out...14 day stretch in the hospital, and all went well procedure wise...However while in the hospital, I was tested for and tested positive for staph infections...tested pos for mrsa...Home from th hospital, and extremely weakened from the ordeal...I slowly began moving around and trying to regain my strength and confidence. Started cardio rehab last week, and things were moving along...Well, 3 days ago, I found a boil like appearance on my left thigh/cheek...good old nrsa reared it's ugly head...Today it looks almost healed and gone,but I'm not quite sure how to react to this...
Med wise, I am still on cardizem, off flecianide, but on digoxin, oh and also on Wafarin (coumadin)...2 1/2 mg... nice 2.5 INR level...
That's my story and I'm stickin to it...
It has been a crazy journey, but I'm optomistic and am trying my best to stay positive about it all and build up my strength and confidence as well as my battered immune system...(14 days in the hospital can mess you up )
any comments or information would be greatly appreciated...
Should I get the mrsa thing checked out now? wait a while and see? This is all new territory for me, and I would appreciate some feedback ... Still think this is a wonderful support group...Glad to be back...

sincerely

Lou