First day home with Pacemaker

welcome!

by Tracey_E - 2018-07-18 20:23:03

You already did the first thing, you found us so you know you aren't alone. 

Know that worry and thinking about it all the time at first is NORMAL. 

For me, learning all I could about it and understanding how it works went a long way to getting back to normal. I can accept what I can understand. Also, just getting back to life. Realizing that day to day activities didn't make me exhausted. That I could take a walk and not be dizzy. The more I did, the more I trusted it to do it's job. The better I felt, the less I thought about it.  One day you'll realize that you barely give it a thought.

One of my favorite things about hanging out here is when someone new and scared who can't possibly imagine getting to that point comes back months later and says they've reached that point and they are feeling great. 

First day home with Pacemaker

by Hearthope - 2018-07-18 20:35:07

Thank you, Tracey.  Those things all make sense. I'm thankful to be home and I'm only at day 3 post op, so tomorrow is a new day!  I hope I too can encourage people when I am further in my journey.  

Welcome Hope!

by AgentX86 - 2018-07-18 21:49:33

For me, scary was skyping with the granddaughter and almost passing out, then a few days later getting a call at 3:00AM from the cardiac event  monitoring company telling me to get to the ER, now.  The PM was an easy decision and it was all downhill from there.  To be fair, my EP had been discussing a PM because of my AFib/Flutter for about a year but this turned it from theoretical possibility into a done deal in a couple of days.

Day 7

by Paulb - 2018-07-19 03:41:44

I have had sleeplessness nights, nightmares and pure worry. I have been reading up as much as I can, especially on this site, and finding reassurance that it is normal to be stressed at first. Today I find myself much calmer and beginning to trust this strange dependency. I Iike the list of famous people who have PMs and it was reassuring. Each day is a little better which is great. 

Getting used to a pacemaker

by LondonAndy - 2018-07-19 12:55:36

For me it was easy: I got my pacemaker because of surgical complication when they did my replacement aortic valve, and so no time to think about needing one before (because I didn't!) and also the fresh opening of one's chest for 200mm / 8" to do the valve is a much bigger deal than then comparatively minor pacemaker procedure.  The valve also meant that I was mentally a bit out of it for the first few weeks, and to be honest it was some 4 months before I thought: what do I need to know about pacemakers!  It simply hasn't been an issue for living my life, except recently it has indirectly: getting an MRI scan when you have one can be a bit of a challenge, but that's all done now too.

Doubtless it helps that I am a bit of a gadget enthusiast - at home I have some 30 things connected to my Internet router, and goodness knows how many other gadgets that are not.  And that is how I look on the pacemaker - a gadget. 

I also take comfort in the numbers: around the world some 600,000 pacemakers are implanted every year (http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/105/18/2136) .  They are tried and tested devices, closely regulated.  You and I are in a highly developed countries with extensive medical facilities, though I trust that your hospitals have better food than ours do!

But I know it is easy to give rational arguments and they don't help people who are more prone to anxiety.  So I will finish by saying simply that it gets easier to live with it.  Your own experiences will be your light.

Trusting your pacemaker

by Gotrhythm - 2018-07-21 14:36:47

I found it helpful to name my pacemaker. Somehow naming made it more real--less an abstract thing I didn't really understand--and more personal, more mine. The idea sounds a little weird, but it really does work for some of our members.