Saturday, August 19, 2017

"That's Weird"

"That's weird", said my cardiologist as she tapped on the control screen of the equipment monitoring my pacemaker. "Oh, are you feeling something?"

"Doctor, weird is not a word I like hearing when you are checking my health", was my reply. "And, yes, I'm feeling things in my chest I haven't felt before".

Cheerfully she went on to explain she was doing tests, and my heart didn't start beating for a moment after one of the tests. Weird, but nothing to be concerned about.

Three years ago two bradycardia events landed me in the hospital for the first time in my adult life. A third occurred while I was in the emergency room. When I left the hospital, I had a pacemaker.

When the first two happened, I face planted. Messed up my rugged good looks.


In the days ahead had two more trips (non emergency) to Northern Colorado Medical Center. First, to rearrange my nose. The second to redo the pacemaker. Seems my lung capacity, and chest expansion, is out of normal parameters. Probably from growing up while performing hard physical work at high altitudes. I pulled one of the pacemaker leads loose and my cardiologists went in and placed a new pacemaker with longer leads. Not fun!

Continuing in her cheerful manner, she said I have thirteen and a half years battery life left and that the pacemaker had kicked in 284 times in the past year. 

"Use your in home device each quarter and come back in a year", were her final directions.

This is a device I place over the pacemaker that send a report via an app on my tablet to her office.

Last month during an eye exam had a retinal scan done. No calcification of the veins was evident.

It appears my enjoyment of embarrassing my children is good to go for a few more years.

6 comments:

drjim said...

And get your revenge via the grandkids.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

That too!

It's.a.crazy.world said...

Happy to hear that you're up an running ~ so to speak.....and I agree that "weird" is not a word I would want to hear from my doc.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Some might find our conversation weird about eye dominance and the best place for a rifle butt next to the pacemaker.

Coffeypot said...

One side of my hear is a skosh slower than the other and I have a slight blockage (but not enough for surgery per the doc) in the artery on the left side of the neck. So, bottom line, I might be dead before I finish this comment. NOPE, made it this time. You keep up the good reports. The grandkids need you.

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Bitch getting old.