My Pacemaker

Early Monday morning, I was awoken by a blackout. It was like I had just shut down or something. I felt better when I sat up in bed, so I just stacked all the pillows and leaned on those, to keep my head elevated. I fell asleep a couple times and when it finally got light outside, I decided to take a shower. So the legs came off, and I climbed into the shower chair, and started in on an invigorating shower.

I had just rinsed off the shampoo, and it hits me again. Only THIS time, I'm getting really weak. I called out for my dad for help, and I was still kind of blacked out. I heard my dad knocking on the door, and asking me what's wrong. I explained my morning to him, and told him that I wanted to go to the emergency room. He had to wake up mom, as she's really the ONLY person who can drive. It wasn't long before we all got into the car and were on our way to Mease Countryside Hospital's ER.

So I was filling out the forms in the registration area. And they have this reader that reads the palm of your hand, as an identification system. Once they read my palm, I got into emergency pretty easily after that. So they hooked me up to the EKG equipment, all those wires on electrodes to monitor you heart. And while I was there, I experienced another blackout. According to the tech there, I flatlined for about 8 seconds. Does that mean I was dead for eight seconds?

So they checked me into Intensive care, Once there, they tried several techniques on me. They hooked up an external pacemaker, with pads the size of a CD-Ron. But that was'nt synching up with some EKG equipment, so they had to change out the external pacemaker. So, of course, a different external pacemaker, requires a different set of adhesive electrode pads, so I lost a lot of hair in intenive care.

Of course, THAT machine wasn't working with the EKG equipment, so thet had to actually put in a temporary pacemaker. By going into an artery between the neck and shoulder, they can drop an electrode right into the heart. This more or less instantly stabelized my weak hearbeats, and I really started to feel better.

The next day, I went in for a permanant pacemaker, as the temp was used just to get me through the night. This pacemaker went in the same place that the temporary pacemaker went n, only this pacemaker was small enough to slip under the skin through a small incision. The past few days was just to make sure I had stabelized, and to prevent infections.

Now I'm in a different facility. Therapy. They didn't want me to go right home. I can understand why. But it STILL sucks. (They got a PC here, so I was able to get online to write this.) And I'm told I might be here for a couple days. So I'm not at home to hop on my RCT PC. But in a few days, I'll be home and taking it easy. I just needed to make a more detailed message that included more than what I could peck out on the Blackberry.

Wolfman

Sunday, July 4th. I'm spending a rainy day here with my parents. During the course of the next week, I'm probably going to be released from medical observation, and attending the clinic for swallowing therapy.

It seems that I had a stroke a few years back according to a recent catscan, and from what I gather, that's just about the time I started to have problems swallowing.

So I'm going to spend the weekdays at the clinic, and have the week ends off to visit my parents, as therapy does not happen on the week ends. I haven't looked into this arrangement yet. But it seems that this will work out according to all signs.

Jeez, dude..

Sorry I haven't been around lately. =\ I've been really busy with life and I've barely had any time on the computer. Hope you get better soon, that's some scary shit..

I thought you've already suffered brain damage too?! XD




All joking aside though, I hope that day is far away.

Glad you got to sleep.

If it helps I slept 'till noon today and 2 yesterday.

I'm still tired at 1:00 PM Saturday. I just don't want to fall into the habit of sleeping all the time. It's not good for the human body. So I'll probably take a nap at 3PM, for a couple hours. (Yesterday, I woke up at 7PM.) But I've been sleep deprived for the last three weeks or so. A hospital or a health and rehab/retirement home are no place to get rest.

Don't ask me. I'm quoting one of the nurses.

OK, THIS totally blows.

Seems I have a build up of fluids between my lungs and the ribcage. Dr. Bayron, my cardiologist, had X-rays done of me today, and "discovered" this nusance.

It's like I've been telling them about the shortness of breath and how I hear bubbling noises when I breathe and cough for ten minutes or so after I lay down to sleep for the night.

But do they LISTEN?
No. Not until they have the evidence stairing them back in the face. OK, rant over...

Long story short, I'm heading back to the hospital tomorrow, (08/10/10.) Just waiting for a bed to become available.

Condition:
Pleural Effusion:
An accumulation of fluids in the tissues of the chest cavity.

The Proceedure:
Thoracentesis:
A proceedure to remove fluid from the space between the lungs and the wall of the chest.

You OK, dude? :\