CRT-D Extraction

• by Rob42
• 2023-06-27 10:29:41
• Complications
• 558 views
• 6 comments

Well they finally extracted the pacemaker and the leads after 5 infections to the site.  It wasn't plain sailing as people had suggested, it was a real adventure.

Sit down buckle up and break out the popcorn.

I suffer from depression and was in a Epworth Camberwell, mental health unit for a week to settle me down for the upcomming pacemaker extraction.  I was discharged from there only to go home into a house full of Covid.  I isolated as much as I could and was doing quite well at dodging Covid. Infection number 5 caused the pacemaker site to start swelling, so off to the Austin Hospital.  They admitted me then promptly isolated me for the next five days because of Covid in the family.  Each day the Covid tests came back negative.  On the fifth day they bundled me into an ambulance and sent me over to Melbourne Private Hospital for the extraction.  They had to wait 7 days before they could align both the electrophysiologist's team and the thorasic surgeon's team to do the extraction. On the evening before the procedure I get Covid.  Melbourne Private isn't geared up for Covid so they wheeled me across to Royal Melbourne Hospital and I am going into isolation for the next 7 days.

On the fifth day they decide to do the procedure because they have both teams ready to go and they don't want to wait any longer.  Now keep in mind the extraction of the pacemaker is the easy bit, the extraction of the leads becomes more difficult the longer the leads have been in.  My leads have been in 14 years from the original ICD and 7 years for the other two leads for the CRT-D.

I was told the extraction was difficult and they had to cancel the procedures following mine.

"Difficult" from my point of view was a bit of an understatement.  Two punctured arteries, blood clot in my neck and my left arm, and my blood pressure kept on falling causing several met calls over the next day resulting in an IV plugged into the artery of my wrist.

Since I am pace dependent they have stuck my old pacemaker on the outside of my chest and run the lead up onto the artery in my neck.  This arrangement was supposed to be for about 72 hours before they implant the new device on my right side.  Well it turned out to be another 6 days before they put the new device in and home the day after.

So, 38 days, 4 hospitals, a bucket of antibiotics and the saga is over or is it?

The new pacemaker site failed to heal properly.  A swab of the wound showed a staph infection.  Luckily the infection hasn't tracked down to the pacemaker pocket and was due to one of the stitches being naughty.  They cut the stitch out, along with surrounding tissue and sent it off to be tested.  Fingers crossed because I have no idea where they will stick the next pacemaker.