I had a message on my phone this morning after coming out of the 8:30 a.m. Mass. It was from my doctor’s pacemaker department. I knew that my unit was scheduled to transmit last night.
The message that I expected was, “Everything’s all right, as usual.” Instead, I received a message that asked me to call and speak to the tech. When I called, I was told that my pacemaker had transmitted and that it had recorded “an incident.” I was asked how I felt last week Wednesday. I asked, “What time?” and was told midnight. My response was that I would have been in bed asleep and asked what was going on.
Apparently, around midnight, my heart started racing over 200 beats a minute. My pacemaker began delivering a “therapy”. What that means is that it beats my heart faster than what it was beating on its own in an effort to then bring the pace back to a normal level. The tech told me that, at the same time it was recording the event, it also recorded that the defibrillator was charging itself and readying for a shock. Thankfully, the pacemaker was able to bring the heart back to a normal rhythm so the defibrillator turned itself back off.
That was something that I didn’t want to her. I know that I have a heart that was severely damaged by a virus and I know that it is not in good shape. I know that I have the unit implanted for just these matters. However, hearing that report is a bit unsettling, especially since I have had a clean history since having it implanted. There was only one other incident recorded a few years ago. At that time, my heart began racing but settled itself back down before the pacemaker could kick in and do its therapeutic thing. At that time, the doctor told me that, if other events like that happened, they might just have to add a medication to slow the heart rate down.
My cardiologist will be back in town tomorrow and will review the report and determine what he wants to do. Me? Well, for a while, I will let my imagination run wild and think the worst. Then, I will probably just get on with life. After all, what choice does any of us have? 🙂
