Head rush

• by Theknotguy
• 2014-07-29 09:07:40
• General Posting
• 1456 views
• 1 comments

A lot of people put up posts asking if things ever get back to normal after having the PM implanted.

I was wondering about that myself, especially since my PM was implanted in an emergency situation and I woke up after everything was done. I didn't get the chance to go through the advance notice and mental adjustment before waking up with the PM already implanted. Fortunately things have progressed very well and most times I forget I even have the dag-gone thing.

After several months of rehab I was also able to go back to volunteering in the woodshop at a local charity. I started out working for two hours at a time and have gradually worked up to volunteering for four hours at a time. This isn't just standing around, we have to lift pieces of wood up to 50 pounds. We will also work on three to five pound pieces one at a time while machining them into furniture parts. It keeps the volunteers quite busy and gives me needed exercise.

We have to cut the corners off flat boards for bedframes. Other volunteers were picking up two boards at a time, putting them on the chop saw, and cutting off the corners. Pre PM that wasn't too hard even though we were moving 60 boards in a session. Post PM the motion of swinging the boards onto the chop saw would pinch the PM in the pocket in my shoulder. While it didn't hurt the day I moved the boards, it would hurt the next.

Looking around for a better way, I figured we could cut all the boards at the same time if we used some clamps and a Sawz-all saw. So I clamped down the stack, grabbed the Sawz-all and got to work.

I wasn't thinking about the vibration from the Sawz-all and half way through the stack my PM woke up, thought I was running, and kicked my heart rate up. Talk about a head rush! It's something they don't tell you about in the PM manual.

I've since found out I can run the Sawz-all as long as I don't hold it rigidly. The electric motor doesn't seem to affect my PM, nor do any other electric motors throughout the woodshop. I'm back up to about 90% of what I was doing before the PM although my cardiologist told me not to move the 4x8 foot, 90 pound boards. He doesn't want me to exceed the 100 pound weight limit per shoulder.

When I first started back at the woodshop I could only work for three hours. Then I'd start to hurt and have to stop. I told my cardiologist. "Doc, I can only work for three hours, then I start to hurt, then I have to stop!" "And your point?" was his reply. He told me I was so far off the charts as far as rehab is concerned there wasn't any reason to discuss it.

So, yes, things do get back to normal. There's even some funny stuff that goes on. You won't read it in your PM manual but it's fun writing new pages for the book. Life does get better!